FIFTY YEARS AGO IN ESSEX.
31
until Sir John Simon, the father of the science, began to teach them,
about 1840. At all events, if there was any sanitary science before
that date, it was almost entirely ignored. Large towns had no
drainage, and the enormous death-rate in consequence was apparently
considered inevitable. To prove that ague has progressively declined,
it is sufficient to show how prevalent it was ages ago. Bede men-
tions that St. Chad chose as the scenes of his ministry two pestilential
spots in Essex—Tilbury, on the Thames, and Ithancester, near
Bradwell, at the mouth of the estuary of the Blackwater; and, com-
ing down to later times, Norden, in his survey of Essex in the reign
of James I., says that the Hundreds of Essex were fat beyond any
part of the kingdom, but his necessary stay for the purpose of his
survey gave him a cruel tertian ague.1 Common as we know the
disease to have been, does any living man remember the time that a
short and hurried visit to the Hundreds of Essex would likely to
have been followed by an attack of ague ? In my opinion the
explanation why ague is now not so common or so virulent is this—
All through nature we find that there are periods, which may be
longer or shorter in duration, when certain animals, birds, and insects,
and, to come lower down in nature, certain germs of diseases, appear
in abundance. Then for another period the organism may be rare, and,
as in the case of insects, years may pass before it is found in localities
where it formerly occurred in abundance. For some reason, which at
present is inexplicable, the germ of ague seems to have worn out its
1 Daniel De Foe, with his inimitable mingling of fact and fancy, gives an amusing account of
the effects of the ague in Essex, in his "Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, By a
Gentleman." We quote from the second edition (1738) : "I have one Remark more, before I leave
this damp part of the World [viz., the 'Hundreds of Essex,' Barnstable, Rochford, and Dengy
Hundreds] and which I cannot omit, on the Women's account, namely, that I took notice of a
strange Decay of the Sex here ; insomuch, that all along this County it is very frequent to meet
with Men that have had from five or six, to fourteen or fifteen Wives ; nay, and some more : and
I was inform'd, that in the Marshes, on the other side of the River, over against Candy Island,
there was a Farmer, who was then living with the five and twentieth Wife ; and that his Son,
who was but 25 Years old, had already had about fourteen. Indeed, this part of the Story, I only
had by Report, tho' from good Hands ; but the other is well known, and easy to be inquired into,
about Fobbing, Curringham, Thundersly, Benfleet, Prittlewell, Wakering, Great Stambridge,
Cricksea, Burnham, Dengy, and other Towns of the like Situation. The reason, as a merry
Fellow told me, who said he had had about a dozen and a half of Wives (tho' I found afterwards
he fibb'd a little) was this : That they being bred in the Marshes themselves, and season'd to the
place, did pretty well with it ; but that they always went up into the Hilly Country, or, to speak
their own Language, into the Uplands, for a Wife : That when they took the Young Lasses out of
the wholesome and fresh Air, they were healthy, fresh, clear and well; but when they came out
of their native Air into the Marshes among the Fogs and Damps, they presently changed their
Complexion, got an Ague or two, and seldom held it above half a Year or a Year at most; And
then, said he, we go to the Uplands, again, and fetch another; so that marrying of Wives was
reckon'd a kind of good Farm to them It is true, the Fellow told this in a kind of Drollery
and Mirth; but the Fact, for all that, is certainly true, and that they have abundance of Wives
by that very means. Nor is it less true, that the Inhabitants of these places do not hold it out,
as in other Countries. And as we seldom meet with very ancient People among the Poor, which
in other Places we do, so not one half of the Inhabitants are Natives of the place ; but such as
from other Countries, or other parts of this County, settle here for the Advantage of good Farms ;
for which I appeal to any impartial Enquirer, having myself examin'd into it critically in several
places."—Ed.