=Malaria (Chills and Fever).=--Mr. W. S. Green, editor of the _Weekly Colusa Sun_, of this State, has made careful investigations on the malaria question. We quote from his issue of May 12, 1888:--
"_Irrigation and Malaria._--At the irrigation convention held at Riverside in March, '84, a paper by W. S. Green was read on the subject of 'Irrigation on Health.' The writer took a new departure, and combated notions held for ages; that is, he held that however much the received notions of malaria might hold good as to other climates, they were not correct when applied to California, where the air was in motion pretty much all the while. Mr. Green received the highest indorsement of his ideas, and they have come to be accepted as correct. His statement of facts has been verified by almost all observing men.
"_To the Pres. of the Irrigation Convention, Riverside, Cal._--
"Having taken great interest in the problem of irrigation for twenty years and over, I had intended to be present at your meeting, but at this date I find it will be impossible. If a man possesses a mite of knowledge or an idea on this great subject, it is his duty to give his co-workers the benefit of it.
"During a residence of thirty-four years in the Sacramento Valley, I have had time and opportunity to observe and to study its sanitary conditions, and these observations bear directly, I think, on the subject of the effect of irrigation on the health of a country. I am led by these observations to reject almost _in toto_ the long-accepted theory of infection by malaria from the atmosphere, that is, so far as it pertains to California. I will not consume your time with a technical dissertation, but will state some facts as briefly as possible, and in plain, homely phrase.
"When I saw people living all along the margins of the tules, where in summer the water became hot and stale and full of decaying vegetation, and hundreds of forms of animal life, and yet remain entirely free from malarial influence, I began to think there was some mistake in the accepted theory. I do not pretend to say that all the people living along the tule margins were or are healthy. All who occupy some places seem to be attacked by chills, while the occupants of places close by are never so attacked. Health is the rule. I saw that all these people, those on the healthy and those on the sickly places, must breathe the same air, coming to them from the same hot, stagnant water and decaying vegetation, and I concluded that malaria was not in the air. But I investigated further.
