Malaria : an essay on the production and propagation of this poison, and on the nature and localities of the places by which it is produced : with an enumeration of the diseases caused by it, and of the means of preventing or diminishing them, both at home and in the naval and military service / by John Macculloch.

  • Macculloch, John, 1773-1835.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Malaria : an essay on the production and propagation of this poison, and on the nature and localities of the places by which it is produced : with an enumeration of the diseases caused by it, and of the means of preventing or diminishing them, both at home and in the naval and military service / by John Macculloch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    This is the useful end, and the ohject in view; correction of the cause, or, if that be impossible, avoidance. To know the ex- citing cause of a disease, is the first and most important step in practical medicine ; it is to be furnished with the means of pre- venting what, unfortunately, we cannot always cure ; pain which we cannot mitigate, or death which we cannot prevent. Avoid- ance is prevention, and, to a large extent, it is effectual. Better still is the abolition of the cause; but neither end can be gained, until our knowledge is accurate and complete. And if Malaria is that cause which I shall prove it to be, of dis- eases numerically, and of instances of disease arithmetically, to an enormous and little suspected amount, then must this essay, if it be as true as I conceive it to be, become an auxiliary to prac- tical medicine, of an importance not less, at least, than would be a new and effectual mode of curing these disorders, including, as they do, some of the most deadly, as well as the most refractory, to which mankind is subject. And if thus, by prevention, effect- ing more than even a method of cure could do, so is it to an ac- curate and minute knowledge of the causes, of the exact spot, and of every spot, productive of Malaria, that we must often resort, even for the means of cure; since it will be found, that the most obstinate of these disorders are rendered incurable by repeated but unsuspected applications of the cause, so that the mere avoid- ance of that becomes the cure. And if this inquiry thus forms a necessary portion of the merely medical part of this work, not less will it prove useful to the peo- ple as a practical guide towards the avoidance of diseases, endless in variety of character as in variety of evil, and which, in the in- finitely greater majority of cases, are the produce of this very ig- norance ; of want of knowledge, or want of suspicion, as to the existence or presence of Malaria. If they were thus taught but to avoid the fevers which, in most cases, are the produce of this ignorance, fevers which, in every summer, are committing their ravages even in our towns, and which a very little caution would often prevent, it would be no small gain; but when we add to this the endless list of other disorders, chronic or acute, the torments of entire families, or the cause of misery to individuals beyond numbering, the impediments to business and industry as to com- fort and happiness, and all of these but too generally the conse- quences of similar ignorance, I cannot help thinking that to spread such opinions as widely as possible, and to enforce them as strong- ly as possible, is a duty, and a duty which will not fail to be re- warded at least by some success, hereafter, if not at present; while the only reward which has here been contemplated, is that success; the conviction of having aided in diminishing human suffering.