ON CORAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER- 424 
of the town ?—I say no> and medical men, both English and 
Dutch, have been, and probably are, up to this moment, la¬ 
bouring under ignorance of the true cause. 
The two most likely causes assigned for the fever of the 
Harbour are, first the emanation of miasm from the town and 
river—and from the mud flats adjacent, especiallytho.se to the 
westward of the town, from which most “pestilential vapours'* 
are said to rise and be carried by the land breeze which blows 
at night to the islands and shipping. 
This is decidedly the most popular cause both with medical 
men and the public in general, and appeals so forcibly to the 
senses that it will require strong proofs to upset it* The se¬ 
cond is that the nature of the islands themselves is such that 
from the soil, “pestitential vapours’’ arise, which are in them¬ 
selves the malaria. These two causes we will examine one 
after another, commencing with the first. 
In Mr Wade Shield’s report already partially quoted-- 
we find that after many had died of the fever caught on the 
Island of Onrust, “the commanding officer conceiving that 
the vicinity of the island to the mainland was the cause 
of sickness (which supposition seemed corroborated b}/ - 
the fetid mists that daily came off from thence to the Island,) 
ordered the sick to be removed to the small island of Edam 
situated nine miles at sea’’, a distance, as he thought, 
sufficient to insure its salubrity,—“here the tragic tale com¬ 
mences.” This tragic tale we have already related, how of 
60 soldiers landed—30 died on the spot—22 at sea, and of the 
remaining seven landed and lodged in the Malacca Hospital 
nearly all died—how that of all the sick taken from Onrust 28 
in number, mostly all died—of 16 marines 13 died—and, to 
crown the whole, 9 officers finished on that dreadful island their 
mortal career. I defy the Annals of Epidemic to shew an 
equal mortality. Having learned from such dear bought ex¬ 
perience that this island was so unhealthy, the author of the 
report very natually concludes, that it could not be so from 
the emanations from Batavia, or the adjacent mud flats, as 
the further removed from the cause the greater was the effect. 
The island of Onrust which they had just left was unhealthy, 
but nothing compared to Edam—yet it lay 6 miles nearer the 
mainland—a second reason consists in the fact of H. M. S. Dae- 
dulus, being anchored mid way betwixt the island and the 
fort, and therefore much nearer the sources of malaria ema¬ 
nating from the mainland than the islands of Onrust and 
Edam, not having landed one man on any of the islands 
except two officers, yet did not lose one man, nor suffer an 
attack of the epidemic saving these two officers, the purser 
