REPORT OF THE MALARIA EXPEDITION. 
5 
Surface and storm- water drainage is carried mostly in the roadside ditches, but mountain 
torrents on their way to the sea occasionally intersect the level areas on which tlie town is built. 
There is no sewage drainage, nor removal system for night-soil. Deep pits, or rather 
wells, covered by a privy and seat, are employed. It is stated tliat the old pits are st>metimes filled 
up and new ones dug ; but so far as we could judge, dry earth is seldom used, except by the 
Europeans and troops, and the system adopted seems to be a natural kind of scptic-tauk system. 
Wells for drinking-water are not generally in use. 
Horses and wheeled traffic are rare. Those who do not walk are carried by native bearers 
in " hammocks." 
The troops, wlu'ch belong mostly to the West India and West African regiments, are 
iioused much better than the civil population. Their barracks are well-built wooden structures, 
placed on the summits of four hills ; namely, on Tower Hill (400 feet), in the middle of the 
town ; on Mount Aureole (800 feet) and Kortright Hill (1,100 feet), to the east of the town ; and 
on Wilberforce Hill (600 feet), some distance to the west of the town [photograph i and Map /.]. 
Civil patients are treated in the large Colonial Hospital, the Incurable Hospitals, Lunatic 
Asylum, etc. Military sick have their own hospitals attached to the several barracks mentioned 
above. 
Mangrove swamps occur in some of the bays and creeks of the shore. 
Collections of water suitable for tiie larvae of gnats abounded in tiie town when we were 
there (rainy season). Such collections could be divided into two classes ; namely, (i) collections in 
vessels ; and (2) collections on the ground. Tlie former occurred in tubs, pots, broken bottles, etc., 
in the vicinity of almost all the houses ; the latter chiefly in tlie roadside ditches and holes in 
rock, and, almost exclusively, on areas of level ground. 
6. Statistics- — It is usually impossible to obtain from statistics any exact information 
regarding the actual number of infections of hajmamoebiasis occurring within a given place and 
period. The reasons for this are — (i) that the vast majority of attacks are not recorded ; (2) that 
a large number of attacks which are recorded must be mere relapses, due to infections acquired 
perhaps long previously and in other localities ; and (3) that the microscope is not generally used 
for exact diagnosis. Similarly the mortality returns are apt to be vitiated, because (i) the infection 
has often been acquired elsewhere ; (2) Europeans are frequently invalided wiien seriously ill ; 
and (3) deaths of cachectics are often ascribed to immediate causes, such as pneumonia and 
dysentery. 
Military returns, though they are sometimes tliought to be more trustworthv, are open to 
the same objections. Many soldiers do not come to hospital at all for slight attacks of fever ; 
while others are frequently only " detained " in hospital for brief treatment, witliout being 
"admitted" — that is, entered in the returns. Thus we were informed of an instance in which 
only one quarter of the cases of fever which came to hospital had been "admitted" and recorded. 
The absolute figures are therefore not trustworthy ; but, by supposing the ratio of error 
to be always constant, we may derive some useful comparative information regarding the amount 
of fever prevalent in different places, and at diflfercnt seasons. 
