Note 50 — Chapter VII · COTTON SUPPLY AND WHITE LABOUR IN THE COTTON CLIMATE.

Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of Science of that city, says: “The class of diseases most fatal in the South are mainly of a ‘preventible nature,’ and embraces fevers and intestinal diseases, and depends mostly on conditions under the control of man, as drainage, the removal of forest growth—of personal exposure and private hygiene. The climate further north is too rigid the greater part of the year for personal exposure to the open air, so essential to the enjoyment of health, and when the extremes are great and rapid, another class of maladies predominate—the pulmonary, as well as others arising from crowding, defective ventilation and filth—exacting preventive measures from the public authorities with as much urgency as the worst fevers of the South.”