OF GIBRALTAR. 35 



is a distinct disease from all other forms of fever, has 

 been much shaken from the recent prevalence of a 

 " nondescript" fever on hoard Her Majesty's ships 

 Caledonia and Formidable, whilst in the Gibraltar 

 bay, during the late disturbances between Morocco 

 and France ; the former vessel was fresh from Eng- 

 land and the latter from Malta, and had been only a 

 few weeks off Gibraltar when a fever broke out 

 among the crews, several of those labouring under it, 

 being admitted into the military hospital when I was 

 doing duty there. All, however, did not present the 

 same symptoms, but the majority had the deep yellow 

 colour of the skin, and one fatal case had many 

 symptoms, which even the most experienced pro- 

 nounced to be those of the epidemic yellow fever. 

 Here, then, we had patients suffering from the mildest 

 form of remittent fever to that of the severest form of 

 yellow fever, all occurring on board the same vessels, 

 the disease, at the same time, not attacking, to the 

 best of my knowledge, any on shore, and it left the 

 vessels immediately on going to sea. To what cause 

 are we to attribute the fever in this case ? Surely to 

 a local origin, though perhaps not to one on shore, for 

 then it was likely to have prevailed also among the 

 inhabitants. The only circumstance I observed, 

 which might in the slightest degree be supposed to 

 have contributed to the production of the disease, was 

 the stench along the line wall, produced conjointly by 

 the effluvia from the sewers which empty there, and 

 the gaseous emanations from the decomposition of 

 sea-weed, &c. ; and although I do not wish it to be 



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