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> Dear Stephen 
> ...   If you could I'd be very grateful if you could send me the 
> original email you sent out and then I can check and see if any of 
> my references are of any use to you.
> Thanks 
> Sam Sneddon 


Dear Sam

Thank you for your e-mail. I wrote to Nick Hudd directly, rather than 
through the mailbase (I'm obviously embarked on a steep learning 
curve in matters of etiquette here). Please find my e-mail below.

     Stephen Benham


From:                 Self <stb>
To:               [log in to unmask]
Subject:          Romney Marsh and malaria
Date sent:        Mon, 12 Apr 1999 15:14:13

Nick Hudd

I was interested in your message on the 
mailbase.ac.uk/lists/local-history mail list. My experience is 
similar, having collected a series of disparate interests over the
years.

However, I was particularly interested in your reference to Romney
Marsh and malaria. A friend and I are researching the history of our
local parish (Llangynfelyn, in the north of Ceredigion), which with
the surrounding parish of Llanfihangel Genau'r-glyn contains the
coastal raised mire called Cors Fochno, on the south side of the river
Dyfi, on the west coast of Wales. This bog is said to have been the
furthest north that malaria used to occur on the west coast of
Britain. Stories of the "shakes", as the very mild local malaria was
called, and of Hen Wrach Cors Fochno (the old hag of Cors Fochno), the
personification of the disease that was said to stalk the bog, were
common currency. The disease died out around the middle of the last
century, probably because with the arrival of cheap house coal from
south Wales, when people stopped visiting the bog to cut peat, and
broke the lifecycle of the parasite. It was (is?) said that the Hen
Wrach is only sleeping, and that she will awake for the day the coal
of south Wales runs out.

We are starting to put material on-line (www.llangynfelyn.org.uk), and
will be including the enclosure and partial drainage of Cors Fochno,
but have not looked at the matter of the malaria. I would be very
interested in your experience with the Romney Marsh malaria, and any
suggestions on how to demonstrate anything useful about an endemic
non-fatal disease itself dead this last century and a half.

     Yours sincerely

          Stephen Benham



          Yours sincerely

          Stephen Benham


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Fy marn i yw'r uchod ac nid yw o reidrwydd yn cynrychioli barn LLGC
The above is my own opinion and not necessarily that of the NLW


                  STEPHEN BENHAM

     Archifydd Cynorthwyol / Assistant Archivist
     Adran Llawysgrifau a Chofysgrifau / Dept of Manuscripts & Records
     Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / National Library of Wales
          Aberystwyth
          Ceredigion SY23 3BU

     e-bost / e-mail: [log in to unmask]
     tel: 01970 632 870
     ffacs: 01970 632 883
     http://www.llgc.org.uk

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