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1 52 CHANNEL i s l a n d s :
and prevent both sun and air from penetrating die
cpiagmires, called roads, that lie between them ; and
which, being now no longer wanted as defences against
the invasions of the French, seem at present to serve no
other purpose than to preserve, unmolested, during
halt the year, those foetid and unwholesome airs that
are generated from the slow decomposition of an exuberant
foliage ; and thus, if not actually to sow the
seeds of disease, at least to contribute in the most
certain and effectual manner, to render the human
body more obnoxious to its attacks, less able to support
itself under them, and more slow and lingering in its
convalescence.
And here it gives me great pleasure to be enabled
to state, that both the legislature and the more influential
inhabitants at large of Jersey, have lately
begun, with patriotic and praiseworthy zeal, to open
out a channel for such improvements in the sanatory
condition of the island, by the establishment of an
“ agricultural society,” founded upon liberal and extensive
views, and under the highest patronage. It
is with peculiar satisfaction that I here refer to this
new institution ; as I presume that those measures to
which I have just alluded, for the general improvement
of the health ot the island, will fall legitimately
within its scope and comprehension ; while, from the
patronage extended to it by the legislature, and from
the ardent zeal and distinguished ability manifested
by its founders and promoters, I have the strongest
assurance, that the important suggestions here offered,
will not be permitted to pass unregarded.
Admitting, as I do most fully, the fact, that a damp
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atmosphere is a very general predisposing cause of
rheumatism, (and damp, as applied to the body, is
synonymous with cold), 1 cannot quite agree with a
distinguished writer of the day, in thinking it the
onlg cause. Fverything tending to debilitate the
general constitutional energies, tends doubtless to
render the body more susceptible of the action of
causes, that would otherwise be inert. Hence a predisposition
to this disease is doubtless given to many
of the residents, by the practice, too general among
them, of nightly visitings ; in returning from which
they are unavoidably exposed to the damps and fogs
of the midnight air,—and that too at a time when the
mind is exhausted and spiritless ; and the body relaxed
by exposure, for hours, to the unwholesome air of
crowded apartments. - Among the rural population
again, two causes, of a very different kind, claim onr
notice under this head. The former is the severity
of their field labours, in conjunction with an impoverished
diet; the latter, is the extensive use of
ardent spirits, as appears indubitably from the statements
in a former chapter, drawn up from official
sources. It is natural that the labourer, being the
owner of the little plot of land which he cultivates,
and to which he trusts as his only maintenance and
support, should assiduously strive to make the most of
it ; and that too with a degree of interest unfelt by
one who labours for hire, and is careless of the results.
The crops that he grows are destined for the supply
of his own family : should one of them fail, that article,
however great a necessary of life, is so much cut oft"
from the year’s provisions ; since land, not money, is
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