As this subject of home acclimation is one of too much importance
to be allowed to rest on the opinion of any one individual, I
have taken tbe liberty of writing to several of my professional
friends, for tbe results of tbeir observations in different localities
and States. All the answers received confirm fully my assertion,
that the Anglo-Saxon race can never be acclimated against marsh
malaria. I should remark, that the following letters were written
with the haste of private correspondence, and not with the idea of
publication. The first letter is from Hr. Dickson, the distinguished
Professor of Practice in the Charleston Medical ColleOge.
“ Charleston, May 16, 1856.
“ My d e a r D o c to r .— I hasten to reply to yours of the 9th inst., received by yesterday’s
mail.
1. ‘The Anglo-Saxon race can never become acclimated against the impression of
intermittent and bilious fevers, ‘periodical,’ or ‘malarious fevers.’ On the contrary, the
people living in our low country grow more liable to attack year after year, and generation
after generation.
“ We get rid of the poison in some places, and thus extend our limits of residence; but
in no other way. Drainage, the formation of an artificial surface on the ground, and other
incidents of density of population—such as culinary fires, railroad smokes, and the like,
aid to prevent the formation of malaria, or correot it.
“ B o u d in - (.British and Foreign Rev., Oct. 1849) argues against the possibility of such
acclimation, dwelling upon the little success and great mortality attending the colonization
of Algeria, the European and English intrusion into Egypt and into Hindostán.
“ The French, he tells us, cannot keep'Up their number in Corsica. In the West Indies,
the white soldier is twice as likely to die as the black; in Sierra Leone, sixteen times more
likely; and this continues permanently.
“ In B ryson’s Reports on the Climate and Principal Diseases of the African Station, it is
affirmed (p. 83) that, on board the Atholl (a vessel kept some time on the station), the cases
of fever have recovered much more slowly than formerly; so that, instead of its being an
advantage to be acclimated, it is apprehended that it will be quite the reverse, as the system
becomes relaxed and debilitated by the enervating influence of the climate.
‘“ 2. Do negroes in this country (rice-field) ever lose their susceptibility to those diseases?’
Yes, in very great measure, if not absolutely. If they remain in the same locality,
they are scarcely subjects of attack. I use cautious language—too cautious. It is
my full belief that they become insusceptible of the impression of the cause of periodical,
or what we oall malarious, fevers. Who ever saw a negro with an agüé-cake? I certainly
never did. Change of residence begets a certain but very moderate degree of susceptibility.
If a house negro be sent to a rice-field, he may be attacked. So, in shifting along
the African coast from place to place, the natives of one locality will be seized by fever
sometimes at another. B ryson tells us that Fernando Po is so terribly insalubrious, that
negroes brought from any part of the African oontinent are always sickly there, ‘though the
natives of the island itself appear to be a healthy, and athletic race of people.’
“ The same author tells us of the general insusceptibility of the particular race called
Kroo-men, all along the coast. This class of people are therefore very useful and available,
being hired in preference to others on board the cruisers.
“ 3. Negroes increase in number on our rice plantations; nay, it is my impression that
the rate of increase is greater than on the less malarial-cotton plantations, The majority
of deaths that do occur, happen in winter and from winter diseases—few dying of fever,
none or almost none from bilious, intermittents, or remittents, some from typhus or typhoid,
or ‘typhous’ fever.
* * * * * * * , *
“ I remain, &c.,
“ Samuel Henry Dickson.”
There is an interesting fact in the above letter to me, as I have no
experience in the rice-field country. I allude to the acclimation of
negroes in these flat swamp-lands, and their increase. As far as my
observation goes, the hilly, rich clay-lands of the interior are, with
few exceptions, more liable to malarial fevers than the swamp-lands
on the water-courses. The hills in the neighborhood of our swamplands
are always more sickly, than the, residences which are on the
river bcmlcs. Brofessor Dickson says that the rice-field negroes
increase more than those on the cotton plantations. Certainly,
negroes do suffer greatly on many cotton plantations in the middle
belt of the Southern States; ahd I have, seen no evidence to prove
that negroes can, in this region, become accustomed to the marsh
poison; and my observation has been extensive in four States. A
question here arises; Is there any difference in types of those
malarial fevers which originate in the flat tide-water rice-lands, and
those of the elay-hills, or marsh fevers of the interior? I am inclined
to think there is.
The following lptter is from my friend Dr. ¥ m , M. Boling, of
Montgomery, Alabama, whp has had much experience in this region,
and who is well known as one of our best medical writers.
“ Montgomery, Ala., May 17, 1856.
“ Dear D octor.—Judging from my own observation, I am inclined to believe that there
is no such thing as aeelimation to miasmatic localities; in other words, that neither residence
in a miasmatic locality, nor an attack, nor even repeated attacks, of any of the
various shades or forms of miasmatic fevers, confer any power o f resistance to what we
understand by the miasmatic poison—not regarding yellow fever, however, as belonging to
this class of disease. On the contrary, one attack, it seems to me, instead of affording an
immunity from, rather increases the tendency or predisposition to another. It would be no
difficult matter, I think, to obtain histories of cases, of persons born, and continuing to live,
in miasmatic localities, who have been subject to repeated attacks of miasmatic fevers,'
occasionally, during the entire course of their lives—say from a few days after birth to a
moderate old age—“ from the cradle to the grave.” We do,, to be sure, meet with persons
who have resided for a considerable time in miasmatic localities, without ever having had
an attack of any of the forms of the fever in question. Such instances are more common,
if I mistake not, among persons who have removed from a healthy into a miasmatic locality,
than among such as may have been bom and reared in the latter. But it is a rare
thing, indeed, according to my observation, to meet with a person, residing in a place
where miasmatic diseases are rife, who has had one attack and no more.
“ Yours, &c.,
“ Wm. M. B oling.”
It were an easy task to multiply evidence to tbe same effect; but
what has already been said should be sufficient to satisfy any think