Medical Topography of Malacca, 59 



required, I allude to changing from one station to the other as the 

 case may be ; to the Penang hill, and to cruising in a cool latitude, 

 outside the Straits : in which very great cold may at many seasons 

 be expected ; so much so, as to require for the greater part of the 

 twenty-four hours, woollen clothing. Therefore I infer that previ- 

 ous to having tried, under judicious direction, the beneficial effects of 

 these changes, a change from the Straits altogether cannot in such 

 cases be pronounced by the medical officer to be absolutely requisite ; 

 especially where from official station or otherwise, such change would 

 either to the public service, or to the individual prospects of the 

 party himself, be highly undesirable. 



Again, many of the cases being sent from the comparatively bracing 

 climate of the Indian Presidencies to the Straits for a change of air, 

 when just recovering from or while even yet labouring under dysen- 

 tery, liver, and other similar cases, must be considered as injudicious. 

 For such, a more bracing climate than tfie one they are leaving, and 

 surely not a more relaxing one, is requisite ; yet this is frequently the 

 case. The sea voyage and a short trip being probably more held in 

 view than the nature of the climate about to be visited, or the parti- 

 cular season, or perhaps even the station to which a preference is in 

 the first place to be given. These are left to the sick person to 

 find out, as best he may, or rather perhaps to the discretion of the 

 Medical officer under whose hands he may first find himself on 

 arrival. 



The prominent features of the climate of Malacca are its moderate 

 degree of temperature, its comparative equability during the twenty- 

 four hours, as well as throughout the year, (its mean range from 

 6 a. m. to 3 p. m. shown for the last three years to have been but 

 8°; the mean range between the extremes taken at 3 p. m. being 

 the hottest in February, March, and January, 91^°, and coolest in 

 December and January, 74£° or about 17° variation) the humidity of 

 its atmosphere, and the absence of any cold season, so requisite to 

 brace up the exhausted energies of the European constitution. 



This sufficiently accounts for the diseases prevailing, viz. catarrhal, 

 pulmonic, rheumatic affections, fevers of a certain type, and diar- 

 rhoeas, following upon loss of tone of the stomach and bowels ; 

 together with indolent action of the liver, enlarged spleens occasion- 



