though it presents very great difficulty in the way of such investigations. It is not a little interesting to the political economist as well as to the mere physician, to observe the effects produced upon the human constitution by this poison. We shall do no more here than allude to the immense catalogue of diseases occasioned by it, and the very great mortality. The evils which it is capable of inflicting, are well exemplified in the history of the Walcheren expedition, which failed entirely from this cause. Jackson, who served in the British army as a surgeon, during the war of the revolution, tells us, that of the portion of their army which encamped in July, 1780, on the banks of the Pee Dee, more than two thirds of the men were taken ill before the expiration of three weeks, and scarcely one of the officers had escaped." The heart indeed sickens when we contemplate the desolation spread by this destroyer, over many of the finest and most fertile portions of the globe. 66 The most important inquiry, however, relative to this part of the subject, is the question as to the influence of Malaria on the average duration of human life, in countries liable to its dominion. Our author has here collected a number of striking statements which, if authentic and correctly given, are truly melancholy. Assuming, as we suppose with sufficient fairness, the average duration or mean term of life in England, "and in other countries of Europe not subject to the plague of Malaria," as at least forty-five, he gives from Dr. Price, a computation referring to some district not distinctly indicated, which makes it there not more than twenty-five. Condorcet, in other and worse situations, places it as low as eighteen. In Bresse, in the Lyonnais, it has been calculated as varying from twenty to twenty-two. We have for some years past, been endeavouring to collect data upon which to found a similar calculation of the average duration of life, in the lower country of these Southern Atlantic States, comprising Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. We are satisfied that it may be fairly stated at between thirtyfive and forty, certainly not lower. The writers quoted by Dr. MacCulloch, it is evident then, have done us gross injustice in rating the extreme term of individual life in Georgia and Virginia, as not exceeding forty. We rank among our familiar acquaintance, native residents of this low marshy country, and not a few in number, between 60 and 90 years of age, both male and female, who enjoy still all the blessings and privileges of a green old age. We further know many individuals, who, born in unfavourable spots, "marshy situations," have spent the whole of their lives in their native fens, expecting and enduring every autumn an attack of fever, of greater or less severity, who yet have attained the age of from 40 to 60 and 65 years, with a very fair developement and a continued possession of the animal capacities, both for action and enjoyment. The venerable Robert Jackson, already mentioned, has stated in his excellent Treatise on Fever, "that there is not on record, as he was credibly informed, an instance of a person born in Petersburg, Virginia, and constantly residing in the same place, who had lived to the age of twenty-one. When the British army marched through that province in 1781, he tells us, "he had an opportunity of seeing a native of that town who was then in his twentieth year, but he was said to have been the first who had ever attained so advanced an age. He was decrepid, as if from the effects of time, and it did not appear that he could survive many months. Yet it is not a little curious that this man "had never been confined with sickness.' With all deference and respect for one of the patriarchs of a profession, which we reverence, we must venture to pronounce this a most exaggerated story-the error being by no means intentional on the part of Dr. J. but probably occasioned by the misrepresentation of some wag; perhaps, to account for the disappearance of the adult and able-bodied townsmen who had evacuated the premises on the approach of an hostile army. There are particular spots or sections of limited extent in this lower country— and such we presume might be selected in England or in Ireland—in which the mean term of life of the inhabitants, would, probably, be very low if they remained stationary throughout the year. But a retreat of a few miles to the sea-coast, or the nearest pine ridge, removes them from the evil with so much readiness and convenience, that few can be found willing to make so useless an experiment. How very unlikely that a town should grow up in so fatal a position. In our own city, and on many of the islands which line our sea-coast, we would hardly be content to compute the average duration of life as, in any notable degree, less than that of our European ancestry-that is from 35 to 45 years.* *With reference to this question of the duration of life, our population may be divided into four classes-Native Whites, Foreigners Native Negroes and Africans. As to the extreme term of the first class, it extends, probably, as far as in any other part of the world. There is now living in our city, an old lady, born within its limits, who has spent here more than a century; she is 104 years of age. It is not two years since the death of a very respectable citizen, who was born in St. Thomas' Parish, in the very heart of our Malaria region-he had reached the ripe period of 94 years and 5 months. Without extending our inquiry beyond the limited sphere of our own intimate friends, we have had put into our hands a catalogue of elderly persons, which shows the following result. Five on the list are dead whose ages average 85; nine are enumerated, who still live-their ages average more than 78; · Throughout the range of country above indicated, the mean term of life of females, is something beyond that of males, most of these we know, and can declare that they exhibit as few of the severer infirmities of age, as any similar number of persons equally old, in any part of the world which we have visited. Both males and females are included, and all of them have divided their time between town and country. We might readily add to the numbers above given, but these shall suffice. Of the second class, the same remark as to the extreme term of life, would hold good. Within the circle of our own immediate connexions, there have died three of about 80 years of age; there are still living others who approach or have reached that age. We believe that the probabilities of life are increased to a foreigner, who having emigrated here before his grand climacteric, has survived without disorganization or permanent and obvious injury to his constitution, the first few years' residence, or "seasoning," as we term it-i. e. we believe that he will live longer here than he would have lived, if he had remained at his native place. African Negroes suffer no shock by a removal to our climate, but such as is given by the cold of our short winters; and this is much diminished by the warm clothing with which they are supplied, the shelter of habitations better than they had been accustomed to, and the hot fires which they keep burning. They seem absolutely insensible to our most concentrated Malaria. No record of their ages being accessible, all is conjecture concerning this point; but if we reason from all the appearances which mark extreme old age, and from the slowness with which these appearances supervene and are accumulated-the whitened locks and beard-the smooth bald scalp-the absorption of the sockets of the teeth-the obtuseness of the senses, &c.-it would not seem particularly absurd to attribute to many of them lives as long as those of Captain Riley's Arabs. Speaking seriously, we have no doubt, that we meet frequently with Africans, whose years, if fairly told, would amount to more than a century. Native Negroes we do not think likely to attain so great an age. Their ancestors had all the advantages of the European emigrant, without his liability to Malaria disease. The extreme life of the "country born," is not greater than that of his master. The average duration of life in the two, we suppose to be also nearly the same-the blacks dying in sufficient number from their greater susceptibility to cold and its effects, to counterbalance the advantage derived from their less susceptibility to miasmatic affections. We subjoin a table of the deaths in the City of Charleston, above the age of 40, for the last eight years: From From From From From From From From 40 to 50 50 to 60 60 to 70 70 to 80 80 to 90 90 to 100 100 to 110 110 to 120 The whole number of deaths in the above period of eight years, is set down as 6953 The number of deaths above 40, being nearly one-third of that amount, 2181 hence the greater number of widows met with, than of widowers.. Such will always, indeed, be the fact in new countries, from the greater risks to be encountered, difficulties to be overcome, and exposure to be gone through in the prosecution of all active occupations, and especially those of agriculture, than in older communities, where arrangements of comfort and convenience are carried into all matters of business of whatever kind, and labour and hardship and anxiety are in proportion diminished. It is not to be expected that we should acknowledge that there is any degeneracy evident, either in our physical or intellectual constitution, compared with those of our transatlantic kindred. As to the first, we possess still-to use a phrase from Milton, slightly altered-the capacity to effect all purposes of noble and manly exertion; with respect to the second, we feel that we are not unworthy to be the descendants of the countrymen of Shakspeare, Newton, Cromwell, Sydney, Pope, Burke and Byron. It may be urged, that there has not yet been sufficient time to give the experiment of transplantation to this Malaria climate, a full trial. We must be content to wait the remote issue, but we have no fears for the result. Another important point to be determined, is the influence of Malaria upon the fertility of our species. It would, at first view, appear reasonable to anticipate an indirect diminution of the number of births in a country subject to Malaria, on account of the individual sufferings from attacks of disease, yet we are persuaded that this effect is scarcely, if at all noticeable, but rather apt to be merged in other circumstances, of which the most prominent are the the abundance of food and its quality. In some of the villages beyond Rome, on the road to Naples, we may instance Fondi and Itri, in the midst of a region, where the delay of a single night in the warm months, is at the utmost risk of a stranger's life, every traveller remarks the crowds of children that throng the streets, so as to be avoided with much difficulty, by the most skilful postilion. The state of things is similar in our own lower country. In one of the very worst spots of it, we lately met with two women, neither of whom had reached their 27th year, one the mother of eight, her companion of seven children. A man present, a resident in the same miasmatic location, had a family of eight also. We would rate the average fertility of marriages in the lower country, at about seven. It is satisfactory also, to hear the opinion generally expressed, that a larger proportion of these children arrive at maturity than formerly; perhaps, from its becoming more and more customary to remove in summer to a pine-land residence. It has been much disputed whether Malaria, in producing its effects upon the body, acts primarily upon the skin, the lungs, or the stomach. Our author is in favour of the position that the lungs offer it the most ready inlet. The merited popularity of a distinguished Professor in one of our Medical Colleges, has, in this country, given currency to the doctrine, that ærial poisons act chiefly, if not exclusively, upon the internal surface of the stomach, being mingled with the saliva and swallowed. We would, by no means, deny the possibility of the admission of Malaria into the system by each of these modes; yet, we think it indicated, by a variety of circumstances, that the skin is, for the most part, affected primarily by this deleterious agent. We find the state of sleep the most favourable to the excitement of miasmatic diseases. In all unhealthy countries, you are cautioned against sleeping while exposed to the noxious exhalations. The postilion, as he drives you with dizzy rapidity through the Pontine Marshes, shouts to you to rouse yourself and sit up; every one urges upon you the absolute necessity of vigilance during your dreary ride through the Campagna; while all travellers have felt that this vitiated atmosphere is full of drowsy, soporific dispositions, and that the most vehement resolution can scarcely resist the temptation to indulge in slumber. Universal experience has proved the danger of sleeping in such situations; but, in the state of sleep, little or no saliva is swallowed, while the skin, and probably the lungs also, are engaged with no decrease of activity in their functions of transpiration and absorption. The principal argument, however, in favour of the cutaneous admission of Malaria, is drawn from the exemption enjoyed by the lower races of man, and by the inferior animals, from diseases originating in this source. We state the rule broadly-it must be acknowledged that there are certain exceptions, but these we shall readily explain. In no respect is the difference between the white or Caucasian man and the inferior races-especially the negro-more prominent and striking than in the degrees of their susceptibility to the action of these febrific miasmata. In this point, the African constitution approaches nearer that of the lower animals than of the white man. He delights in the hot and steaming plains of Africa, and exults in full health and vigour, amongst swamps and cane brakes, whose lightest breath is destruction to the European. Without his aid, our rice fields must, forever, remain uncultivated, and the whole of our fertile low country become again a desert. Thus also, it is only by the exacted civil and military services of the natives of tawney Hindostan, that the Englishman "lives, moves and has his being," in that unfriendly |