8 THOMPSON YATES AND JOHNSTON LABORATORIES REPORT 
there was one death from cardiac failure after enteritis. In 1900 there were eleven 
Europeans in the hospital ; two deaths occurred, one from dysentery, the other was 
a sailor landed in Bathurst with an abscess in the brain. Of the non-official Europeans 
sixty-nine were under medical treatment ; or these thirty-five were malarial fevers of 
the remittent type, with one death ; seven were believed to be yellow fever, with six 
deaths. It is stated in the reports that the severe cases of fever occur during the 
latter part of the year, from July onwards, that is, after the wet season has fully set in. 
In connexion with these figures the Colonial Surgeon points out that a fairly large 
percentage of Europeans return to England during the wet months. During the 
past year, 1901, there has been stationed in Bathurst a company of the West Indian 
Regiment. These men, though drafted from Sierra Leone, had for the most part 
originally come from Barbadoes and other West Indian Islands where endemic 
malaria does not exist, thus they were in the same category as the white man entering 
an endemic malarial district, and were therefore specially suitable to study the liability 
to infection with malarial fever. Further, no special precautions were taken amongst 
them to ward off attacks from mosquitoes, nor was quinine administered as a prophy- 
lactic. The men arrived in April, and were quartered in the barracks, McCarthy 
Square. Some of them went away for a short time in the early part of the year on a 
punitive expedition against some tribes up the river ; altogether there were one 
hundred and eight men. The following chart shows the percentage of cases amongst 
(Chart I) 
this force admitted into hospital with malarial fever during each month from April, 
1 90 1, to January, 1902, indicated in the chart by the thick line. The fever was for 
the most part remittent in character, and the diagnosis was to a large extent confirmed 
by microscopical examination of the blood. The curve does not represent the total 
number of malarial fever cases occurring amongst the soldiers, as many soldiers suffer- 
ing from only slight attacks of fever were not ill enough to be admitted into hospital. 
With this chart is also given the rainfall in inches, and the maximum and minimum 
temperatures in the shade for the year. It will be seen that the greatest percentage 
of malarial cases occurred in the months of September, October, and November, and 
that there was a marked decline from December to January ; in the latter month no 
cases occurred. During the former months innumerable mosquitoes are present in 
Bathurst ; the rainy season being fully established during July and August has so 
raised the level of the ground water that many suitable breeding-places occur along 
the borders of the swamp and in the drains, etc. Besides the old observations illustrated 
in this chart of the relation between rainfall and malarial fever, it is also interesting 
to note that the greatest percentage of malarial fever cases amongst the soldiers also 
occurred in those months when the variations in atmospheric temperature are 
least marked, namely, July, August, September, October. The average variations 
between the maximum and minimum temperatures in the shade in these months 
