598 Analysis of Books. [Nov. 
opinions respecting it which have been published, those of the Dutch Physicians 
in the Eastern Archipelago are perhaps the least known, it may not be uninterest- 
ing to give a brief analysis of them as they appear in these Transactions. 
I. The first paper is by Dr. M. T. G. Mutter, Physician to the Hospital at Wil- 
tevrede. He sets out with an account of the several appearances of Cholera in the 
Eastern Islands: the first notice of it is in Bontius, Physician to the Dutch 
Settlement of Batavia, who published an account of the diseases of the East Indies 
in 1629, and among others of Cholera Morbus, which according to him was so 
violent, that ‘¢ Cornelius Van Rayen, steward of the hospital of the sick, being in 
perfect health at six in the evening, was suddenly seized with the Cholera, and 
expired in terrible agony and convulsions, before twelve o’clock at night ; the 
violence and rapidity of the disorder surmounting the force of every remedy.” 
Bontius, Chap. vi. 
On the news of the appearance of Cholera in Malacca in 1819, the Dutch 
Government of Java directed all ships coming from infected parts to undergo a 
strict quarantine. In spite of this, the disease broke out at Java in April, 1821, with 
such violence, that at Batavia, 156 deaths took place in one day, and by June it had 
visited every quarter of the island. The violence abated in December, by which 
time it is reckoned 110,000 persons fell victims to its rage. 
This, it will be seen, is avery different account from that in the Lancet, the 
Editor of which is determined to maintain the contagious nature of the disease, 
and shapes according to that the history which he gives in the number for November 
1831. He informs us that, 
“In 1823, coincident with the Burmese war, and the march of our troops from sick 
districts in British India, the Birman empire became affected. Coincident again with 
the general or particular periods of the arrival of individual vessels or trading flotillas, 
we find the malady in Acheen, the capital of Sumatra ; at Banca, Java, and Borneo, in 
the Philippine Islands; at Amboyna, in the Molluccas, and at length in Macao and 
Canton on the west coast of China.”— 
Thus insinuating that it didnot appearin Java before 1823, and omitting all men- 
tion of the quarantine. 
The author then gives a summary account of the course of the disease—‘‘ A few 
minutes after being attacked by Cholera, the following appearances are observable. 
The patient lies without motion, stretched out in one posture ; the skin is blue or 
dirty brown, and sometimes marked with lividor purple spots, as is seen in frozen 
persons ; some times altogether dry, at others covered with cold sweat. It is cold, 
hard, and contracted, quite different from health, and conveys to the fingers, par- 
ticularly when covered with sweat, a peculiar disagreeable sensation. The turgor 
vitalis disappears, so that even corpulent persons appear to have become lean*. 
The countenance falls in, and indicates great weakness ; the forehead is covered with 
cold sweat ; the eyes lie deep in their sockets, and are surrounded with a dark ring. 
The half shut eyelid allows only a part of the muddy eyeball to be seen, but when- 
ever it is fully opened, the exhausted eye looks out with a melancholy gaze. The 
blue lips remain half open, and allow exit to cold expiration ; the chest heaves 
laboriously, the abdomen labours to maintain the respiration. It is however 
tolerably even, and neither tumid nor retracted ; the extremities are stiff, the skin 
of the half shut hands wrinkled as in persons who work much in water, but cold, 
* This striking symptom appears to be unnoticed in our Medical Publications. 
