Whatever May Be The Cause Of The Fever, We Observed That
All Were Often Affected At The Same Time, As If From Malaria.
This
was particularly the case during a north wind:
It was at first
commonly believed that a daily dose of quinine would prevent the
attack. For a number of months all our men, except two, took quinine
regularly every morning. The fever some times attacked the believers
in quinine, while the unbelievers in its prophylactic powers escaped.
Whether we took it daily, or omitted it altogether for months, made
no difference; the fever was impartial, and seized us on the days of
quinine as regularly and as severely as when it remained undisturbed
in the medicine chest, and we finally abandoned the use of it as a
prophylactic altogether. The best preventive against fever is plenty
of interesting work to do, and abundance of wholesome food to eat.
To a man well housed and clothed, who enjoys these advantages, the
fever at Tette will not prove a more formidable enemy than a common
cold; but let one of these be wanting - let him be indolent, or guilty
of excesses in eating or drinking, or have poor, scanty fare, - and
the fever will probably become a more serious matter. It is of a
milder type at Tette than at Quillimane or on the low sea-coast; and,
as in this part of Africa one is as liable to fever as to colds in
England, it would be advisable for strangers always to hasten from
the coast to the high lands, in order that when the seizure does take
place, it may be of the mildest type.
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