PHYSICAL AND MEDICAL CLIMATE AND METEOROLOGY OF THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA WITH VALUABLE HINTS TO EUROPEANS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH IN THE TROPICS. BY JAMES AFRICANUS B. HORTON, M.D. Edin. STAFF ASSISTANT SURGEON OF H.M. FORCES IN WEST AFRICA; ASSOCIATE OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON; KE 32138 7.6651 Harvard College Library Wm. Cameron Forbes PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH. Oct/83 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD CARDWELL, LATE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, THESE PAGES, AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS PUBLIC ENDEAVOURS TOWARDS THE MATERIAL ADVANCEMENT OF THE AFRICAN RACE, ARE INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. ΤΟ THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT OF WESTERN AFRICA. GENTLEMEN,-It has been truly remarked by Heberden, that one of the first steps towards preserving the health of our fellow-creatures is to point out the sources from which diseases are to be apprehended. I have therefore, in the pages of this work, endeavoured to investigate that subject in its detail, and to point out the various causes which, on the West Coast of Africa, have led to so fatal a result among the European and native population; which have degraded the lives of a great many; and which have deteriorated the energies of the inhabitants. The maladies peculiar to tropical climates have the most mischievous effect in checking the progress of true civilisation in tropical countries; they leave a prestige of insalubrity hanging like a cloud over them. How far this is the case in Western intertropical Africa, I need not venture to enlarge upon, but will merely remark in passing, that not only has the European on leaving home a melancholy foreboding of a speedy termination of his existence, but his relatives and friends also reckon him, from the day of his embarkation, as amongst the dead; and to what extent these forebodings have been realised, I leave the death-rate of the few Europeans who visit the coast to tell. |