Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/340

Rh 320 M A L M A L at a distance from its supposed place of origin. _ Thus, it it is said to have caused fever on board ships lying 2 or 3 miles off a malarious shore, although it is more usual for ships at even a short distance from the shore to escape. In West Indian experience it has been known to render the high limestone ridge more unhealthy than the swamp at its foot, and a similar experience has occurred on the Kentish shore of the Thames estuary, and at other parts of the English (Channel) coast. There are instances where it has, so to speak, travelled along a narrow valley from an unhealthy marsh to a salubrious situation. Although a still night is most favourable to its production, there is a popular opinion that it is carried by the wind. In many malarious localities there is a definite &quot; ague line,&quot; beyond which the noxious influence is not felt. A belt of trees, or even a wall, will &quot; keep it off.&quot; It clings to those surfaces that are most easily bedewed. Situations to windward of a malarious swamp are usually reckoned safe. Hypothesis of Malaria. Malaria is known only by its effects on the animal body ; the effects, although they vary much in intensity, are uniform, definite, or specific, and are characterized by a truly remarkable periodicity. The oldest and most prevalent hypothesis of malaria is that it is a specific poison generated in the soil. Perhaps not every soil is capable under circumstances of causing malaria, but it is difficult to assign limits to its potential presence. There are seemingly well-authenticated cases of malarial disease appearing during the making of railway cuttings, canals, and other excavations in places where malaria had not previously been known ; and there is sufficient evidence that malaria has appeared in the track of cultivation in the western States of America, and that it follows on the upturning of virgin soil, and even of soil that has been long fallow. Attempts have been made, without success, to separate a malarious poison from the gases generated by swamps, or from the air of malarious localities. Still more frequent and elaborate attempts have been made to dis cover the hypothetical poison among the numerous minute vegetable organisms that occur in the soil of malarious (and non-malarious) places; and these also have hitherto yielded no solid result. Another hypothesis is that malaria is a &quot; telluric intoxication,&quot; generated by the vegetative power of the soil when that power is not duly exhausted by plant growth. Lastly, there is an hypothesis that malarial fevers are caused by the excessive and sudden abstraction of heat from the body under the influence of cold and damp, and that the specific effects of the nocturnal chill, amounting to intermittent and remittent fever, are most usual and most marked in hot climates because of the antecedent ex posure of the body to great solar heat. Remedies. Cinchona or Peruvian bark (with its alkaloid quinine) is a remedy universally applied with good effect in the treatment of malarial fevers. The treatment is usually commenced during the first intermission or remis sion. There is no good evidence that the taking of quinine wards off the attack of malaria. The extent of cinchona planting in southern India, Ceylon, Jamaica, and elsewhere is the best measure of the value of quinine as a remedy, and more particularly as a remedy for ague. Arsenic has proved one of the most efficient substitutes for quinine. The dwellers in malarious localities have found in opium a palliative of the misery induced by the malarial cachexia. Literature. Hirsch, Geographisch-Tiistorische Pathologic, 2d ed., Stuttgart, 1881, pt. i. sec. 7 (the bibliographical references ap pended to Hirsch s chapter on malaria include upwards of eight hundred names) ; &quot;W. Ferguson, &quot; On the Nature and History of the Marsh Poison,&quot; Trans. Hoy. Soc. Edin.,ix., 1823 (omitted by Hirsch; was the first to dwell upon the fact that malaria is often associated with heat and drought, and elevated rocky localities) ; Macculloch, Malaria, an Essay, &c. , London, 1827; Robert Williams, Morlid Poisons, London, 1836-41, vol. ii., chapter on &quot;Paludal Diseases&quot;; Colin, Trait^ des fievrcs intcrmittcntes, Paris, 1870 (expounds the theory of &quot;intoxication tellurique &quot;) ; C. F. Oldhain, What is Malaria? and Why is it most Intense in Hot Climates? London, 1871 (a comprehensive review and acute criticism of established facts and current theories, with the motive of showing that there is no specific malarial poison) ; Morehead, Clinical Researches on Disease in India, London, 1856, vol. i. (for symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of intermittent and remittent fevers) ; Fayrer, Climate and Fevers of India, London, 1882 (both general and clinical). (C. C.) MALATIA, less correctly MALATIYAH, the ancient Melitene of Cappadocia, a town of Kurdish Armenia in the vilayet of Diarbekir, about 8 miles to the south-west of the Euphrates below the confluence of the Tukhiua-su, and about half way between Baghdad and Constantinople, on a route which for ages has been one of the uiott important in that part of Asia. Asbuzi or Aspuzi, a place about 5 miles distant, which was formerly inhabited by the people of Malatia during the summer only, has become the per manent residence of a large part of the population (about 20,000, including both), but Malatia proper remains the administrative centre of the sanjak. The remains of the ancient town are much dilapidated. In the time of Strabo (xii. 537) there was no town in the district of Melitene. Under Titus the place became the permanent station of the 12th legion ; Trajan raised it to a city. Lying in a very fertile country at the crossing-point of important routes, it grew in size and importance, and was the capital of Armenia Minor or Secunda. Justinian, who completed the walls commenced by Anastasius, made it the capital of Armenia Tertia; it was then a very great place (Procop., De ^Ed., iii. 4). The town was burnt by Chosroes on his retreat after his great defeat there in 577. Taken by the Saracens, retaken and destroyed by Constantino Copronynms, it was presently recovered to Islam, and rebuilt under Mansi ir (757-58 A.i).). It again changed hands more than onco, being reckoned among the frontier towns of Syria (Istakluy, p. 55, 62). At length the Greeks recovered it in 934, and Nicephorus II., finding the district much wasted, encouraged the Jacobites to settle in it, which they did in great numbers. A convent of the Virgin, and the great church which bears his name, were erected by the bishop Ignatius (Isaac the Eunner). From this time Malatia con tinued to be a great seat of the Jacobites, and it was the birth place of their famous maphrian Barhebrrcus (or Abuli aragius). At the commencement of the llth century the town was said to number 60,000 fighting men (Assem., Lib. Or., ii. 149 ; com p. Barheb., Chr. EccL, i. 411, 423). At the time of the first crusade, the city, being hard pressed by the Turks under Ibn Danishmend, was relieved by Baldwin, after Bohemund had failed and lost his liberty in the attempt. But the Jacobites had no cause to love Byzantium, and the Greek governor Gabriel was so cruel and faith less that the townsmen were soon glad to open their gates to Ibn Danishmend (1102), and the city subsequently became part of the realm of Kilij Arslan, sultan of Iconium. MALAY PENINSULA, MALACCA, or TANAII MALAYTJ Plate (&quot;Malay Land&quot;), the southernmost region in Asia, attached to Further India by the isthmus of Kra, in 10 N. lat., whence it projects for about GOO miles, first south, then south-east parallel with Sumatra, to Cape llamunia (Romania) in 1 23 N., within 95 miles of the equator; it varies in width from 45 miles at the isthmus of Kra, and again at Talung in 7 30 N., to 210 at Perak in 5 N., and 150 at SelAngor, 3 20 N. The area is about 70,000 square miles, with a population of at least GSOjOOO. 1 The peninsula, which is washed on the west by the Bay of Bengal and Malacca Strait, on the east by the Gulf of Siam and China Sea, belongs geogra phically and ethnically rather to the eastern archipelago than to the Asiatic continent. Hence, whenever the proposed canalization 2 of the isthmus of Kra is carried 1 A careful calculation made by T. J. Newbold in 1838 gave a total population of 375,000, since which date the British possessions have increased about fourfold, from 90,000 to 330,000. Hence, allowing for a slight increase elsewhere, the present population must be at least 650,000 (Political and Statistical Account of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, London, 1839, vol. i. p. 418). 2 Tho several projects of canalization are fully discussed by M. Leon Dm in L Exploration for March 9 and 16, 1882. The most feasible, but not the shortest, follows the line of railway already projected in