THE MARSH
AGUE
In this article, Derek Barnard reminds us how far we have come in the last hundred years so far as health care is concerned.
I would expect that most people know that the first chapter of Great Expectations is set within Cooling churchyard and that on the opening page Pip, in his realisation of the identity of things, says 'To five little stone lozenges sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trouser-pockets and had never taken them out in this state of existence.' In fact there are thirteen stone lozenges grouped together in the churchyard and all are in memory of the children of the Comport family who farmed at Cooling, High Halstow and Cliffe. Seven of these stones cover the children of Michael and Jane Comport of Cowling Court and Castle.
| Mary | d. Oct 1767 in infancy |
| William | d. May 1771 aged 8 months |
| William | d. June 1773 aged 7 months |
| Francis | d. June 1775 aged 17 months |
| James | d. Oct 1777 aged 4 months |
| Elizabeth | d. Oct 1779 aged 3 months |
| William | d. March 1779 aged 8 months |
No one rich or poor could escape
the high infant mortality rate, especially on the Hoo and Sheppey
Peninsulas where many deaths were attributed to the marsh ague. Two types
of mosquito breed in the stagnant pools of the marshes. The first, Aedes
detritus, is a vicious biter causing severe skin irritation. The ferocity
of these insects was experienced by Hogarth and his four friends at Stoke
in 1732. "Monday, at three, awakened and cursed, our eyes, lips and
hands being tormented and swelled by the biting of gnats." The
second, Anopheles maculipennis, is the more dangerous because of its
malaria carrying capabilities. The malaria was picked up from sailors
returning from abroad with this disease and passed to the local
inhabitants by this insect which was prepared to live in close proximity
to man, biting at night and seldom out of doors. Those who survived their
first bites were generally immune for life. Only the female sucks blood
and is thus capable of passing on the malarial parasite to her human
victims. Samuel Ireland, writing in 1793, tells of the 'aguish' air that
fills this area and how this air has removed many a yeoman's wife who was
not a native of the spot, sending him to seek another who was likely to
meet the same fate.
Various improvements enabled
malaria to be subdued. The advances in living conditions with clean airy
homes drove the insects to the dirty, humid conditions of stables and
other animal houses and the blood of animals which they preferred to the
human variety. The extended use of quinine, which was introduced in 1840
but was only cheap enough to be used on poor people from the 1 890s
finally held the problem at bay.
A survey carried out in 1937 showed that it was impossible to stay out of doors on a summer evening without being bitten by Aedes detritus, so in 1938 spraying was introduced. It had been found that a large pool carried few larvae but the imprint of an animals hoof could hold hundreds. Spraying was therefore concentrated on the smaller pools killing both types of insect at a containable cost. The continual spraying of the marshes over the years has made the peninsular a safer place to live in. In 1929 the villagers of Cooling thought that the decline in marsh ague was due to the emissions from the cement works, though as we see, other factors were really responsible.
