Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.Giles, George Michael James
Science
Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology: A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.
Giles, George Michael James
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medical climatology; Tropical medicine
very moderate care as to food, water, and personal cleanliness would
suffice to render infection impossible. From what has been said, it is
easy to understand that the disease is practically unknown among
European residents whose habits have reached the most moderate degree of
refinement; but though it may not affect the planter’s health, it reacts
most seriously on his pocket, owing to the disastrous amount of sickness
and mortality it gives rise to among his native labourers. Now it is
perfectly obvious that this disease can be easily prevented by the most
ordinary measures of conservancy, and the question whether the evil can
be obviated or not, is purely one of whether the master has the will and
power to insist on the use of proper latrines. This, however, is by no
means so simple a matter as it looks, where one has to deal with
labourers belonging to a primitive stage of civilisation. Once seen, the
disease is easily recognised by the deadly pallor of the lining membrane
of the eyelids, and of the tongue, especially the latter, which looks
much like a piece of a wet, pipe-clayed buff belt. By treatment with
vermifuges and careful nursing there would be little difficulty in
curing people of European habits; but only those who have had to attempt
it know how impossible it is to get semi-civilised people to adopt, or
even submit to, what to us are the most ordinary sick-room comforts, and
as a matter of fact, there is very little hope for a native who is at
all seriously affected with these parasites.
The best vermifuge we have is thymol; three doses of 30 grains each,
given within six hours, followed up by a dose of castor oil. A certain
amount of caution is required in giving this to cases in a very weak
state, but after all it is the only chance for them. This medication may
have to be repeated once or twice, at intervals of a week, and should
be systematically carried out in all cases that have not gone too far.
The worst of it is, that unless proper sanitary measures can be carried
out, treatment is little better than a waste of drugs, as otherwise the
patients will be sure to reinfect themselves within a few weeks, however
thoroughly the vermifuge may have done its work.
The Guinea-worm is a curious parasite, which is found burrowing under
the skin, and finds an exit through the opening formed by a sort of
boil. It very rarely attacks Europeans, as it may be avoided by the most
ordinary care in the matter of water used for drinking and bathing.
Another curious malady caused by one of the round-worms is the
blood-worm disease, or filariasis. In this the parent worm is found
embedded in the tissues of the host, and periodically discharges into
the blood enormous numbers of its embryonic offspring. As this disease
is undoubtedly communicable through the agency of mosquitoes alone, its
prevention may obviously be secured by the adoption of the same measures
that serve to protect us from malaria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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