ON CORAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER. 
41S 
at Onrust previously). Of the remaining 29 embarked on 
breaking up the blockade, 22 died at sea, the other 7 were 
sent to Malacca Hospital where all or nearly all of them 
shared the same fate !! All the soldiers getting ill on Edam, 
16 marines were landed from the Centurion to do night 
duty as they expected an attack from the Dutch gun-boats ; 
the whole of these were seized with fever and thirteen 
died !!! Almost the whole of the sick (28 in no.) who were 
removed from Onrustto Edam died, and as 9 officers, inclu¬ 
ding the surgeon Mr Cornish, who were doing duty at this 
dreadful island perished, we may form some idea of the 
general mortality/ 3 Such is the dark picture of the fever 
in 1800, and during the last 50 years frequently has the 
shade been equally dark, for there has been an epidemic of 
equal virulence occurring at uncertain intervals and sweep¬ 
ing its thousands before it, and at all times we have an 
endemic of less virulence, hut still presenting symptoms of a 
very deadly character, and insuring mortality amongst those 
attacked of more than 30 per cent. During the 9 years 
that I have been a resident in Singapore, I have annually 
attended many vessels having some of their crew labouring 
under this fever caught in Batavia roads, and frequently has 
it been remarked to me that when a vessel requires to be 
repaired at Gnrust, the sojourn there most surely involves a 
certain proportion of the crew being attacked with fever. 
Captain Brodie, whose experience, extending over a period 
of 30 years, carries with it some weight, considers Gnrust 
at present almost as unhealthy as Edam, and [has known 
picnic parties attacked with fever after visiting for a few 
hours the other islands of Amsterdam and Enkhuyssen, 
and I cannot present the reader with a more striking illus¬ 
tration of the still unhealthy state of the harbour of Batavia 
and the island of Edam 10 years ago, than by transcribing 
a letter from Captain Leisk, Marine Surveyor, Singapore. 
Singapore, 2nd October, 1848. 
To Dr. Ltttle, 
Dear Sir, 
I will with pleasure give you all the information I 
can regarding Edam island. Edam island lies about equal 
distance between Cranang point and Qntong Java, being 
about 10 miles from either point, and about the same distance 
from Batavia Pier. It is a low coral island surrounded by a 
coral reef with a detached coral patch to the northward (1 
am not certain whether this patch is ever dry). The island 
H h h 
