ON CORAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER* 422 
journal volume II page 574, and which fever in its symptoms 
seems to be identical with not only the fever of the Straits 
but with that of Labuan and Hongkong. All who reside in 
the town of Batavia are liable to this fever, and of those attack¬ 
ed one third are carried off, but it is confined in its ravages to 
the town and the immediate suburbs, as at the distance of 2 
or 3 miles the inhabitants of Koning’s plain are exempt and 
the inmates of the hospital at Welte.vreden equally so. 
In symptoms and result, the fever of the town and shipping 
are identical—but is the cause one and the same ? To deter¬ 
mine this I will first examine that of the town—but before 
proceeding further I must express my regret at my entire 
ignorance of the Works of the Dutch medical men who must 
from their great experience and national industry, have 
collected many useful and important facts lost to me from 
my ignorance of their language and the isolated situation of 
Singapore. I am under the necessity of taking a report of 
rather ancient date by Mr Robertson superintending surgeon 
while the English held possession of Java. In this report he 
attributes the fever to several causes, the first being marsh 
miasmata " Batavia, built almost in a swamp, surrounded 
by marshes, in all directions trees and jungle which prevent 
the exhaltations being carried off by a free circulation of air, 
is peculiarly obnoxious from , this cause. Opposite the mouth 
of the river and extending a great way to the westward, is a 
mud bank, which at many parts at low water, is uncovered 
by the sea, and is daily accumulating from the quantities of 
mud and animal and vegetable matter carried down by the 
river during its reflux &c.” 
“ A second and I think an equally powerful cause is the 
stagnant water of the canals which in all directions intersect 
the city. In the first place they are filled with filth of every 
description, there is scarcely at times any perceptible current 
in them to carry off that filth, and lastly the sluices are fre¬ 
quently kept shut, for the purpose of swelling the waters 
above them to irrigate the fields, while those below which 
intersect the town become almost dry leaving an extensive 
surface of mud, and every kind of putrified matter to be acted 
upon by the sun, raising the most pestilential vapours with 
which, as before observed, the atmosphere gets most tho¬ 
roughly impregnated.” 
“ A third cause is the state of the houses of the Dutch, 
and their mode of living, both of which must be powerful 
predisposing agents; and the fourth cause is the water, which 
is represented to be bad, and which, if retained for some time 
without boiling, generates animalculae,” 
