SUNIER: The Laboratory for Marine Investigations. 12Q 



into 56 small rooms, giving out into a common verandah which encircled 

 the grass patch. 



This building appears to have been diverted from its original purpose 

 early in its history, for ere long it served as a residence of great numbers 

 of "Priestesses of Venus", who laid snares for the seamen whose ships 

 had let drop their anchors in the roadstead of Batavia. In connection with 

 this the building, since called the "Rumah Kuning" (Yellow House) 

 came to stand in very bad odour. Even to day its repellent memory still 

 persists among old residents who, in their youth, were acquainted with 

 the purlieus of the Batavia Passar ikan. After the harbour of Tandjong 

 Priok came into use, the trade formerly prosecuted in the Rumah Kuning 

 transferred itself there, and shortly afterwards even the building itself dis- 

 appeared. On laying out the garden at the site of the present Laboratory 

 for Marine Investigations, remains of the foundations only were met with 

 which had to be removed partially with the aid of explosives. 



The Northern extremity of the present Laboratory site belonged, as 

 late as in 1888, to the Nederlandsch Indische Stoomvaart Maatschappij, 

 originally an English company and predecessors of the present Koninklijke 

 Paketvaart Maatschappij; it was between 1870 and 1880 used as a coal 

 shed by Maclaine, Watson and Co., Agents of the Nederlandsch Indische 

 Stoomvaart Maatschappij. 



The site of the Laboratory for Marine Investigations is a very pleasant 

 place to be in during the day time, and owing to the fact that in the 

 morning between 10.30 and 11 o'clock the sea wind begins to rise, there 

 is never any inconvenience from heat. Dust, one of the plagues of Batavia 

 in the dry season, is unknown here, while noise is conspicuous by its 

 absence, and the surroundings are pleasingly overgrown with vegetation. 



On the other hand, the site is very unhealthy for those who stop 

 there at night on account of the fact that the sea fish ponds situated in 

 the immediate neighbourhood, and in which Chanos chanos (FORSK.) are 

 reared, produce great numbers of the most dangerous malaria-carrying 

 mosquitos, Myzomyia iudlowi THEOBALD, which are in the highest degree 

 infectable with perniciosa and tertiana. From the data collected by Mr. 

 M. L. VAN BREEMEN in 1917, it appears that in that year, in the vicinity 

 of the Laboratory site, the mortality amongst the native population amounted 

 to IOO^/qq and the miltindex amongst native children of from two to 

 twelve years of age to 92% — 96^Vo- 



I wish, however, to state most emphatically that an eleven year's 

 experience has taught me that anyone who spends the daytime regularly at 

 the Laboratory for Marine Investigations, but not the night time, will never 

 be infected with malaria there; also that malaria-infected mosquitos apparently 

 never bite, even inside the buildings, during the daytime. 



It is common knowledge that Old Batavia, including the site of the 

 Laboratory for Marine Investigations, was very unhealthy; it is perhaps less 



