Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 by Various
page 99 of 130 (76%)
page 99 of 130 (76%)
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which those trees, shrubs, and plants should be selected which thrive
the most on marshy grounds and on the shores and paludal coasts of the sea, and which have their roots most speading and most ramified. Some of the ordinary grasses are also quite appropriate, but crops of the cereals, which are obtained after a suitable reformation of marshy lands, yield a much better return. After the soil in the neighborhood of the dwellings has been drained and cultivated with care, and in a more systematic manner than at present, the bottoms of the cellars should be purified as well as the foundations of the walls and of the houses. The water intended for drinking, which contains the Limnophysalis hyalina, should be freed from the fungus by a vigorous filtration. But, as it is known, the filtering beds of the basins in the water conduits are soon covered with a thick coating of confervae, and the Limnophysalis hyalina then extends from the deepest portions of the filtering beds into the filtered water subjacent. It is for this reason that it is absolutely necessary to renew so often the filtering beds of the water conduits, and, at all events, before they have become coated with a thick layer of confervae. The disappearance of intermittent fevers will testify to the utility of these measures. It is for a similar reason that wooden barrels are so injurious for equipages. When the wood has begun to decay by the contact of the impure water, the filaments of mycelium of the Limnophysalis hyalina penetrate into the decayed wood, which becomes a fertile soil for the intermittent fever fungi. The employment for the preparation of mortar of water not filtered, or of foul, muddy sand which contains the Limnophysalis hyalina, explains how intermittent fevers may proceed from the walls of houses. This arises also from the pasting of wall-paper with flour paste prepared with water which contains an abundance of the fungi of intermittent |
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