TOPOGRAPHY AND DISEASES OF ORRVILLE

AND VICINITY.

BY W. A. COCHRAN, M. D., OF CAMBRIDGE.

Orrville is a flourishing little inland village, located in the pine woods on the western side of the Alabama river, and near the centre of that portion of the county known as Western Dallas. It is about five miles from the river at its nearest point, and eight miles west of Cahaba; eighteen miles west of Selma, and one mile south of the Selma and New Orleans railroad. Twenty years ago, the site of the village was occupied by a steam saw mill and gin factory, with a few modest dwelling houses; but through the influence of enterprise and energy, aided by the attractions offered by a flourishing school, it grew in a few years to its present respectable dimensions. Its corporation extends half a mile in every direction from the female academy, which is regarded as the centre of the place, and contains a population of near three hundred inhabitants. It has eight dry goods and grocery stores, a steam mill, a gin factory, a carriage factory, machine shops, and other buildings, together with a large number of beautiful dwellings, displaying no little taste in their construction, which, taken in connection with its church and its academy, together with the quiet and order that reign, bear testimony to the virtue, the intelligence and refinement of its population.

The site of the village is almost a level plane, composed of a fine, porous, sandy soil, with a sub-stratum of clay, and is surrounded by pine woods. There is nothing in the plan of the village, nor in the arrangement of buildings worthy of special mention. Most of the houses are scattered along one main, wide, business street, running east and west for half a mile. About two hundred yards south of this main street, and running parallel with it, is a second street, but not quite so long. A number of cross streets, widely separated, unite these two, and constitute the main portion of the place. It supports a lively and lucrative trade, and is, perhaps, next to Selma of more commercial importance, than any other place in the county. Since the close of the late war, there has been built up on the southern limit of the village a negro settlement, composed entirely of huts or cabins huddled together without any regard to order or system, but perfectly in keeping with the primitive style and grega

rious habits of this race. This settlement is about a quarter of a mile wide, and more than half a mile long.

In a sanitary point of view, this place labors under one disadvantage in common with the whole of the surrounding pine wood country, namely: a want of natural facilities for drainage. The face of the country is generally so nearly level that water does not readily run off, but it accumulates here and there, forming innumerable long and tortuous ponds or swamps, which ramify in every direction until they find an outlet into some running stream. These ponds or swamps vary in width from fifty to one hundred yards, and where they have not been drained, contain water throughout the winter and during wet seasons to the depth of from one to two feet. One of these ponds rises near the female academy, in the centre of the village, and runs east, parallel with the main street, until it reaches its eastern extremity; it then crosses it, and runs back on the other side parallel with it throughout its whole extent. It is true, it has been drained, and that portion in the village converted into gardens and orchards; still, the drainage is so imperfect, that after heavy rains, the ditch overflows, and during wet weather, remains full of staguant water. That portion of the swamp which winds around the northern side of the village is about two hundred yards from the main street. It forms the boundary line on this side; has been imperfectly drained, and is covered with a thick undergrowth, forming an impenetrable barrier, except at certain crossings.

Another similar swamp rises on the north side of main street, opposite its eastern extremity, and runs south through the east end of the place. It courses along for half a mile, close upon the bor der of the negro settlement, and forms its eastern boundary. This swamp has not been drained. So much for the topography of Orrville. Let us glance at the adjacent country.

The district of western Dallas includes all that portion of the county lying west of the Cahaba river, and west of the Alabama river below the town of Cahaba, embracing an area of more than twenty-five miles square. It is a district that is well watered, and is traversed by two railroads, with a soil that is rich and varied as to character, teeming with the products of agriculture, and thickly settled throughout by an intelligent and refined population.

The face of the country and character of the soil are so widely different in different places, that a brief descriptive outline of the district, and some allusion to the topography of certain localities will not be out of place in this report, as they have a direct bearing upon the character of the prevailing diseases.

The whole of the northern portion of the district, extending from the line of Perry county on the west, to the Cahaba river on the east, and southward to within six or seven miles of Orrville, is a rich prairie country, containing much flat, swampy lands in its cen

tral portion, but becomes more rolling as the river is approached, where it terminates in a ledge of hills which lie along and over look that stream. The western portion is a beautiful rolling prairie, and

mostly under cultivation.

The soil of the southern half of the western division of the district is of a mixed character, consisting of lime, clay, and sand, first the one and then the other predominating; that along the water courses consisting of a rich loam, with an argilaceous sub-soil, highly retentive of moisture, and extremely productive.

The remainder of the district, and about one-third of the whole, including the immediate vicinity of Orrville, and extending east and south to the Alabama river, consists of table land of pine woods. This is not a barren section as the term "pine woods" might imply; but the soil is of a consistent character, with a substratum of clay, retentive of moisture, and maintains, in many places, a lively growth of oak and hickory; it is thickly settled, and a large proportion of it is under cultivation.

Three noble streams water the district I have described, and course southeast to the Alabama river. The first of these is Johnson's mill creek, a beautiful stream of clear water about twelve miles long. It drains the pine woods between Orrville and Cahaba, furnishes an outlet for the innumerable ponds and swamps that infect this region, and supplies a never-failing mill-pond before emptying into the Alabama river. This stream emerges from an exten. sive swamp north of the Orrville and Cahaba road, which, like all the rest of the swamps of this section, dries up in summer; but below that road springs maintain it throughout the year.

The next is Boguechitto creek, which runs nearly centrally through the district; it is a formidable stream, and at least fifty miles long. It rises six or seven miles north of Marion in Perry county; runs through and drains twenty miles or more of low, flat prairie land, and empties its dirty water into the Alabama river at Lexington. North of the Orrville and Liberty Hill road the banks of this stream are low, and subject to extensive overflows in winter and spring, but below that road its channel deepens, its banks are more elevated, and it does not overflow so extensively.

The next, and last, is Chelachie creek which forms the western boundary of the county. It is a large stream of clear water, with banks of beautiful white sand, and is about thirty miles long. It rises in Marengo and Perry counties, drains the swamp lands along the western border of the county; furnishes a splendid mill-pond, and empties into the Alabama river three miles below Lexington. Its head-waters overflow and partially dry up in summer, but as the river is approached, its channel deepens, and springs maintain a current throughout the year.

These streams maintain a bold, swift current throughout the winter season, and in times of freshets, rise twenty-five feet high, sweep

ing off fences, and sometimes bridges, overflowing bottom land, and leaving a large amount of alluvial deposit along their banks, and in low places. They also back up extensively from the river in times of freshets, and overflow all the low lands in immediate proximity to them for many miles up their course. These streams are conspicuous features in the geography of this district, and exert a baneful influence upon the health of its inhabitants. The two last mentioned run down separate valleys which average, generally, about two miles wide, and deepen as the river is approached. The streams are about three miles apart where they empty into the river, but they soon diverge, and run nearly parallel for seven or eight miles, when the Chelachie bears off to the west. An intermediate ridge of level and rolling land separates these valleys, extending northward from the river. Near the river it is broken and thrown up into precipitous hills, but as you go northward it flattens, and as the streams diverge, widens out, and is not so elevated. This ridge, which averages about two miles wide for some distance, is thickly settled throughout its whole extent, and the valleys, which are rich, level plains, consist of one unbroken series of plantations.

Prior to the late war, yearly invasions were made upon the timbered lands of these valleys, and most of the plantations were in a high state of cultivation; but since its close, more of these rich bottoms have been reclaimed; ditches have been allowed to fill up, and hedges of reeds, briars, and willows mark their site. The land in the lowest places is often saturated with water until late in the season, and much of it remains uncultivated; vegetation grows luxuriantly, and vegetable matter in abundance is left exposed to the sun, to decay upon the surface of the ground.

The ridge of intervening land is lower than the opposite sides of these creeks-that on the eastern side of Boguechitto rising abruptly and forming the table land of pine woods before alluded to, while that on the western side of Chelachie, rises precipitately into a broken range of hills. The soil of these valleys, although similar, is not altogether alike, that of Chelachie being of a finer loam, is more retentive of moisture, and more productive, while vegetation along this stream and upon the westward hills is always a week or more in advance of that in the valley of Boguechitto.

The Flora of this region is abundant and varied. In the valley of Chelachie, and along the banks of its beautiful stream, even remote from the river, the magnolia (grandiflora,) blooms in majestic beauty, and in prodigal profusion scatters its odor to the breeze, while the jassmine and the wild honey-suckle with lillies and violets adorn the distant landscape of the valley; there also, and upon the adjacent hills and ridges, every species of plant and flower indigenous to the soil of this latitude, radiant with the glow of life, and rejoicing in the sunbeam, flourishes and blooms in luxurious abundance and variety.

DISEASES.

The numerous streams and extensive tracts of low lands and swamps with which this section abounds, together with the character of the soil, render the atmosphere of this district, at certain seasons, extremely insalubrious, and malarial fevers, which form such a conspicuous feature of the diseases of the great cretaceous belt of the State, often assume their most malignant types. So general and numerous are the sources of this poison that there is not a spot anywhere in this district exempt from its influence and operation. The atmosphere is so rife with it at certain seasons, and under favorable conditions of heat and moisture, that not only low lands and swamps, but upland farms, gardens, and yards generate it. Wherever decaying vegetable matter, a bare, wet earth, or recently upturned soil is exposed to the influence of a hot sun, it is generated. Residences, remote from swamps, and protected by belts of timber from low lands, form no exception to the rule, and in vain will the ague-stricken invalid of this latitude seek to find a pure air short of the sea shore or the mountains. The comparative salubrity of many localities in the middle districts of the State during the summer months previous to the late war, when a rigid system of discipline could be enforced, the land well cultivated, and many of the sources of disease removed, is a fact well known to the profession and the public, but since that time, owing to circumstances over which the white population of those districts have no control, every energy seems to have been paralyzed; plantations have been abandoned, drainage and a proper cultivation of the soil has been neglected; a vast amount of decaying vegetable matter left everywhere upon the surface of the ground, exposed to the floods of winter and heat of summer, and pestilence in the shape of the most malignant fevers, has been the result.

There can be no doubt that it is to imperfect drainage and the miserably inefficient system of farming practiced by the rural population of the Southern States, that the extensive prevalence and great increase of malarial fevers of late years are partially due; and say what you will about antidotes and specifics, there is no help for the inhabitants until time, industry, capital, and labor, by a thorough system of surface and underground drainage, with levees or embankments to prevent overflows and a radical revolution in agricultural operations shall free the soil of the noxious effluvia. The almost complete destruction of malaria and the subsidence of malarial fevers in many previously unhealthy districts of France, England, Ireland, and Scotland, not to mention localities in our own country, by a thorough system of sub-soil drainage, and an improved mode of agriculture, need only to be cited to establish the fact that malaria can be exterminated, and our recent sad experience warns us of its imperative necessity.