These Ravenous
Fiumare Have Become A Feature In Calabrian Scenery; Underneath One Of
The Most Terrible Of Them Lies The Birthplace Of Praxiteles.
Dry or
half-dry during the warm months, and of formidable breadth, such
torrent-beds - the stagnant water at their skirts - are ideal
breeding-places for the anophelines from their mouth up to a height of
250 metres.
So it comes about that, within recent times, rivers have
grown to be the main arteries of malaria. And there are rivers galore in
Calabria. The patriotic Barrius enumerates no of them - Father Fiore,
less learned, or more prudent, not quite so many. Deforestation and
malaria have gone hand in hand here, as in Greece, Asia Minor, North
Africa, and other countries.
Thus year after year, from one cause or another, the conditions have
become more favourable for the disease to do its fatal work.
That much of this harm has been done quite lately can often be
proved. At Caulonia, for instance, the woodlands are known to have
reached the shore a hundred years ago, and there are bare tracts of land
still bearing the name of "foresta." In a single summer (1807) a French
regiment stationed at Cosenza lost 800 men from fever, and when Rath
visited the town in 1871 it was described to him as a "vast hospital"
during the hot months; nevertheless, says he, the disease has only been
so destructive during the last two centuries, for up to that time the
forests touched the outskirts of the town and regulated the Crati-bed,
preventing the formation of marshes.
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