One of them, Dr. Mascagni, of
Avezzo, tried the remedy in his own person, and succeeded in promptly
curing an obstinate malarial fever which had resisted the action of
quinine.
Gentlemen, in dealing with malaria we ought always to hold popular
experience in high esteem, for we owe much to it. We owe to it the fact
that we have been liberated from the paludal idea, and furthermore, that
we have learned that it is often better, instead of trying to prevent the
importation, for the most part imaginary, of malaria from distant marshes,
to suppress its production in the soil under our feet or in that
immediately surrounding us. We owe to it the knowledge, which we now have,
that malaria rises up into the atmosphere only to a limited height, so
that by placing ourselves a little above this limit in order to eliminate
the possibility of the malaria being carried up to us by oblique
atmospheric currents, we are enabled to breathe an air which does not
contain this ferment, or which contains it only in insignificant amounts;
thus one may even sleep in the open air during the night in very unhealthy
districts without running any risks. The knowledge of this fact has led
some peoples of Greece, and the inhabitants of the Pontine Marshes, to
sleep in the open air on platforms raised on poles four or five meters
(twelve to fifteen feet) in height.
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