1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

APPENDIX.
21^
fFroiu C. J. M.]
To THE Editor of the News and Courier:— I
have been reading
with much interest the articles which have appeared lately in the Ne7us
afid Courier on the subject of drinking water and malaria. My experience
with driven pumps in the river bottoms may be of interest.
In 1884 I bought a river place to go into the stock business, and as it
was necessary to be on the place I moved into the swamp. My friends,
all advised against it and predicted that I would not be able to live there.
I put down a driven pump twenty-five or thirty feet and for five years
lived on the place, winter and summer, and enjoyed the very best of health
the whole time, and now m}- friends say that I have exploded the idea of
river bottoms being unhealthy. It is impossible to get pure water from a
well anywhere, but particularly in the swamps; but with driven pumps it
can be obtained in any locality, and that renders the bottom lands of the
Pee Dee river perfectl}- healthy. * •' * C. J. M.
Mont Clare, S. C, February 7, 1895.
[From Mr. Eniersou.]
* * * We have h'iug arouud us a rich and fertile country whicli is
practically uninhabited. Why? Simply because the cry is, "Do not go
into the country; if you do you will die of country fever I
" The result is
that strangers coming into the city do not dare be caught outside its
limits after sundown for fear of catching some dreadful disease that will
kill them in a few hours or days. During the last four years I have spent
quite a number of nights traveling all night through the swamps and
sickh' sections of Berkeley county during the months of June, Juh%
August and September for the purpose of deciding the question in my own
mind whether the air had anything to do with the fever or not. Others
have tried the experiment with me and none of them have had any s\'mptoms
of malaria. Not only myself and wife, but my brother and his wife
and two children have slept all through the summer months with all windows
open, and a free circulation of air passing through our sleeping
apartments. I have exposed myself to all kinds of weather, have been
out before da}- iu the bushes and tall grasses, and have been soaked
through from dews every morning during the hot season. I have had my
Northern friends spend from a week to two months with me during the
hot season, and in no case have they shown any sj'mptoms of malaria.
As regards the air arising from the swamps one of "S's" so-called
healthy places is nearer to swamps and stagnant water than my place is.
I would not for the whole of Berkeley county spend a summer in any one
of the places he mentioned and drink the surface water there. A look at
the residents is suflBcieut. It is easy to see that the germ is doing its work,
not to such an extent as it would if they lived on the plantation, because