Labourers of North Carolina were the healthiest people of working classes in spite of their constant exposure to swamps, and drinking swamp water. South American countries such as British Guiana and Brazil which were literally flooded with tropical swamps were free from malaria epidemics. Java Island in Southeast Asia, a region known for epidemics, had luxuriant vegetation and agricultural fields, supplemented with hot and wet tropical climate, ideal for miasmatic disease, was but the healthiest part of Asia.