Author Description

Product description This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1815 Excerpt:... occupy "so wide a range, that I shall at present only beg to remind "you of the topography of Gibraltar; the utter impossibility "of percolation of water though its abrupt and stony "sides, and the absence of those tests of aguish ground so "evident in other countries, and which annually prove their "baneful influence. "Two facts, connected with these points, I shall mention, "as I think they are not to be lightly estimated. "First--The artillery, who have been longer in the "climate than any other corps, have suffered with the "greatest severity, although for the last six weeks they have "been encamped on the steep side of the rock, nearly 800 "feet above the level of the Sea, where there scarcely exists "a vestige of vegetation. "Secondly--The labourers belonging to the naval work "have been kept in strict Quarantine in the Dock Yard, "(very near the spot where the disease shewed itself in "1810) and if there is a situation in Gibraltar favourable "to the generation of Marsh Miasmata, it is there; and in "1804 it shared the fate of the other parts of the garrison; "yet those people this year have continued healthy, as well "as another party of inhabitants, who established them"selves in Camp Bay, and cut off all communication with "the infected." Although authors have confounded this disease with Marsh Fever, they have in general described it as having a continued form; and it has been generally allowed, that the fever consisted of one paroxysm, most frequently of about sixty hours duration, without remission or exacerbation; the patient recovering rapidly in a cool situation, or moderately temperate climate, without leaving any se...