BR. LITTLE’S CORAL THEORY 
without foundation, some doubtful, some contrary to Dr. Little’s 
axioms, and others where the fever can be accounted for by dif¬ 
ferent and generally received causes. Passing over therefore one 
or two examples, (only remarking that at Sulu I saw no exposed 
coral reef within four miles, and it is doubtful whether any exist 
within a distance that could by possibility affect the health of the 
place,) I shall proceed at once to consider what is advanced in the 
essay respecting our new settlement of Labuan. 
Here we join issue with the essayist on facts open to the obser¬ 
vation of all, but before dealing with the reefs in the vicinity of the 
island, we must correct some of the statements advanced touching 
the island itself. In the first place, it is asserted that “ the fresh 
water marsh is so limited and so protected from the sun’s rays by 
high trees and jungle, that reasoning from analogy* I would say 
that it could exert very little influence in producing fever ; if there 
had been paddy fields or cleared fresh water marshes to any ex¬ 
tent, no doubt would have existed that they could occasion fever to 
those located near them, or to those at a distance when the wind 
blew over them.” Now the fact is that the plain at Labuan is 
fully a mile in length with nearly half a mile in width. It is covered 
with low grass and is a fresh -water swamp, with a foul muddy 
drain running through it, which in the S. W. monsoon is choked 
up by the sand thrown on the beach. This swamp extends the same 
length and for another half mile in depth into the jungle, where 
large quantities of fresh water lodge in deep holes; which during 
the rainy season overflow the plain and deposit masses of decom¬ 
posing vegetable matter. 
This fresh water swamp has been considered by every medical 
man, (excepting the one named by Dr Little,) as fully accounting 
for the remittent and intermittent fevers, which have prevailed 
during the three months of September, October and November, 
when the S. W. monsoon blows with great violence during the 
day, and is accompained by rain. 
Towards the end of November the N. E. monsoon sets in, the 
atmosphere loses its humidity, the swamp on the plain becomes dry, 
and the fever disappears, but during both seasons vessels anchor so 
close in, that there cannot be a doubt that the miasm occasionally 
reaches them. 
As Dr Little adduces cases of fever which have occurred aboard 
the Phlegethon and Nemesis, I will likewise state some facts which 
are worthy his serious consideration, and I shall premise them, by 
asserting on the authority of the medical men who have resided on 
the spot, that the shipping during the fever season have been more 
healthy than the persons residing on the plain, and that most 
* Reasoning trom analogy,—I should wish ask to Dr. Little how he accounts 
for fever in high forest and dense jungle, for example the deadly jungle fever for 
some hundreds of miles at the foot of the Himalaya mountains. 
