HOLLAND AND BELGIUM, THE LAND OF MARSHES AND OF FEVER, RECLAIMED AND RENDERED SALUBRIOUS BY THE ENERGIES OF A FREE PEOPLE.  
Necessity is the mother of invention. “Quis psittacum loqui docuit? Venter: Magister artium.”17 A constant struggle with Nature for existence taught the Hollander and Brabanter a practical philosophy in respect of the management of river mouths, tidal rivers, low levels, freshwater and seawater floods, unmatched by any other nation. It required the unceasing vigilance of the most experienced scientific men to combat the adverse circumstances under which their country was placed. An error of calculation laid waste a province; a breach in a sea-wall let in upon the land not only the ocean, but famine, followed by its sure accompaniment—fever, and a wide-spread mortality.
In this land there was no room for experimental jobbery. To have placed a linendraper at the head of the great hydraulic works on which depended the salubrity and prosperity of Amsterdam or Rotterdam would have roused the indignation of the country, and brought the matter to a speedy issue. But it was not until the rise of the Dutch Republic that there sprung up, as a natural result, a school of philosophy—of natural philosophy, and of the sciences of observation and application—hitherto unmatched, a parallel to which can only be found in the era immediately preceding Alexander the Great. Freedom of thought and action produced Muschenbroek and Leuwenhoek, De Ruyter and Van Tromp: then flourished the Elzevir press, and Scaliger was invited by the traders of Holland to pass his days in peace and plenty with them, that his presence amongst them might throw a lustre on their country. In this land flourished Camper and Boerhaave; Albinus and Ruisch taught anatomy; Swammerdam discovered the globules of the blood. In the meantime Tasman and Van Diemen explored the ocean, immortalizing their names and their country by the grandeur of their geographical discoveries. The views of the traders of this the most celebrated of all republics, were universal, and included mankind: with them originated sound political economy. The civilization, peculiarly human, which overcomes all natural obstacles, reached its height in this free land; security of life and property, equality before the law, a contempt for all sinister hereditary influences, a respect for the natural rights of man, and an appreciation of man’s innate worth, uninfluenced by all extrinsic circumstances, characterized in the Netherlands a period standing out in bold relief, and in striking contrast with the history of all other European nations.18 In this forward movement Haarlem was conspicuous, proofs of which may be found in the Transactions of the society established in that city. About 1771 there was offered a prize for an essay on the Waters of Holland, as to the existence of any matters injurious to man or beast, and to describe such, if existing. An unsuccessful candidate for the prize (M. Vander Wild) advanced in his essay this remarkable principle—that the sap of plants consists of living beings, in a liquid element.19
As the nation was free to think and to express their thoughts, nothing practical or useful escaped them: the question as to the influence of the drainage of lakes on the health of the inhabitants was ably discussed during the last century, more especially as to the result of draining the lowlands of Biensten, de Wonner, &c. M. Ungo Waard and others describe the sickness which took place on the drainage of Bleewyksthe. In Haarlem, in 1779, the deaths exceeded those of the previous year by 396; in Amsterdam, by 1727; in Groningen, by 752. The previous summer had been hot and dry, offering another proof that the vegetable humus thus exposed to the air, fermenting and rotting, was the cause of the sickness and increased mortality. In this land there was no room—no margin, to use a commercial phrase—for experiments on the pockets and the health of its citizens; they were citizens, not subjects—far-seeing men, who calculated everything d’avance. And now the draining of the lake of Haarlem shows that the race has lost little of its ancient spirit of enterprise and industry, of that applicative invention to the wants of civilized man which gives to Holland and to her colonies an aspect to which no other country bears any resemblance. The poisoning of rivers and streams by any combination of adventurers could never happen there, and the scenes we have witnessed lately in England would be wholly unintelligible in Holland. It is here that vast morasses, seemingly valueless, are being converted into fertile meadows, by processes of which the natives of other countries have not the slightest knowledge. In this land it is the law that, before any one be permitted to convert a peat bog into a lake by the abstraction of the peat, security is demanded of him as to his means to drain the lake about to be formed, to embank the excavation, and to convert it into a healthy fertile meadow; in England, on the contrary, such cautious procedure is held in the most sovereign contempt, as wholly unworthy that fine chivalrous character for pluck, daring, and exciting enterprise and speculation which marks the free-born Briton.
“Break up the cesspools,” shout the interested, “the receptacles of the filth of millions for a quarter of a century, and pour them at once into the Thames.” “It will poison the river and the adjoining country for a lengthened period,” suggests the prudent observer of passing events. “Persevere,” exclaims the go-ahead party; “have we not proofs in Macculloch that nearly all known diseases arise from the cesspools? Leave the river to take care of itself.” What, in the mean time, is the course of action of the Mayor and Corporation of the richest city in the world? Fully occupied with the distribution of their revenues, they abandon the river and interests of a vast metropolis to a host of talented and needy adventurers, whose name is legion. The people in Holland and Belgium think that the refuse and excreta of the inhabitants of towns, villages, and single houses cannot be too soon or too effectually buried under or incorporated with the soil; we, in this country, act evidently from a belief that this refuse, the product of civilization, cannot be too extensively spread abroad in the open air, and accordingly a formidable and well-paid staff of more than 2000 persons is organized to carry out the delusion to its conclusion. Luton, Birmingham, and London, afford hints as to what these delusions may one day end in: that they will proceed in their course, I doubt not, for, like Macbeth, they are so far involved, that it were safer to proceed than to back out from their position. This could only have happened in the land where the greatest of all railways does not pay the proprietors one shilling of interest on the enormous capital expended in its construction.
Located by the mouths of the Rhine and Scheld, the ancient Batavians must early have commenced their struggle with nature. We have no information from early history of how that struggle began; but one thing is certain—it was of great antiquity, for in the Morini—the last of men—C?sar encountered no fever-stricken, wasted, dejected people: they must already have discovered the existence of that hidden enemy, malaria, and taken measures for at least a mitigation of the evil.