ON COllAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER. 
416 
even to this day, if fever attacks the inhabitant of a locality, 
marshes are immediately .sought after and the fever attri¬ 
buted to the effiuviae or miasm from them 5 and when they 
are not yet fever is. Sir James Murray considers, an 
argument in favour of his idea of fever being produced 
by an electric change of the body. The poor Malay, on 
the other hand, seeing no visible cause, attributes all to 
spirits. That marshy effiuviae will generate fever, I have 
proved in a preceding article, but if one locality is dry, 
elevated, in appearance healthy, is distant from any marsh, 
yet subject to fever, and another locality, to appearance 
not so healthy, contiguous to marshes, is yet free from fevers, 
I cannot by any power of reasoning suppose that the first 
can owe its cause to marshy effiuviae, unless the rule was, the 
greater the distance from a cause, the greater the effect 
produced, which is absurd. Fort Nugent situated amongst 
diminutive hills, where the ^ soil is composed of poudingues, 
sandstone, red iron stone and clay in compact strata” is 
close to the sea beach, and therefore subject to what influ¬ 
ences may be generated there. I do not know the extent of 
the coral formation, but that there is coral there we know 
from some rocks close to the shore being called Karang 
Haji, from furnishing coral for beads used by the hajis 
or pilgrims to Mecca, and to that coral I would attribute 
^he unhealthiness of Fort Nugent. 
Batavia Roads . 
Batavia, a name so well known to all medical men as with 
it to associate the very name of fever, has been the seat of 
endemic fever from the time that man built and dwelt there, 
while periodically it is swept by an epidemic of the same 
nature but of greater virulence in its symptoms and fatality 
in its results, that it had been well for the Dutch nation 
if they had never known this, their mistress of the east. 
It would be impossible in a paper which requires such 
condensation as this does—to describe the many epidemics 
that have prevailed in Batavia, but as a type I will partially 
transcribe one graphically narrated by Mr. Wadeshields 
surgeon R, N in Dr James Johnston’s Work cn the influ¬ 
ence of Tropical climate. This chapter will be more readily 
comprehended if the reader consults the annexed chart of 
Batavia roads. 
et On the 23rd August 1800 His Majesty’s ships Cen¬ 
turion, Daedalus, La Sybille and Bravre anc ored in Batavia 
roads. The Centurion and Daedalus were placed about 4 
