OF THE ISLANDS NEAR SINGAPORE. 
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each side of the rapid current on the coral reefs, by which sub¬ 
stances liable to decomposition are increased in quantity. 
With these strong proofs in favour of the coral reefs being the 
cause of fever, I determined to investigate the island and other is¬ 
lands, for if I could find a locality exactly similar to Ayer Bandera 
and yet healthy my theory would be much shaken, if not proved to 
be fallacious. On referring to my notes I find, that, “after ex¬ 
amining the last house on Ayer Bandera on the 1st of June, 1847, 
we crossed over to the village called Kampong Kopit, (vide chart) 
nearly directly opposite and separated by a deep channel in the mid¬ 
dle, shallow towards the Blakang Mati side, but deep on the Pulo 
Brani side. The distance across is half a mile. The number of 
houses in this village is about 25, aud the inhabitants may number 
100, at present there is one case of fever, and one child only of the 
many that I saw had enlarged spleen. One year ago they said they 
had fever very bad, 80 people having died of it, but with Malays you 
cannot depend on the accuracy of their numbers, butl could depend up¬ 
on my own observations, which were to the effect that all looked heal- 
ttiy and the children had no marks of disease upon them, affording 
a striking contrast to their neighbours opposite, among whom, at the 
same time, there were only 2 healthy persons and these were child¬ 
ren. They say when they had fever, it was during the S.W. mon¬ 
soon in the month of June, and that they consider that monsoon 
their unhealthy one. The village has a deep shelving shore and co¬ 
ral is but little exposed to the air. To that and the distance of half 
a mile betwixt the village and the edge of the reefs that affect Ayer 
Bandera, I was about to attribute the safety of the inhabitants, but 
on a second visit, 12 months after, I found that the village being 
built on a neck of the land, the island of Pulo Brani effectually pre¬ 
vents it from suffering from the winds during the N.E. monsoon, 
which blow over the coral reefs which fringe the S.E. end of the 
island, and the promontory already mentioned as forming the south 
horn of the bay of Ayer Bandera with the Flag Staff hill and a part of 
Pulo Brani prevent the S.W, wind frombringing the poisonous ef¬ 
fluvium from the reef that fringes Blakang Matf. Here is an in¬ 
stance, and that only one of many, where the short distance of Half a 
mile intervenes betwixt a locality possessing an endemic fever, and 
a locality where only an epidemic occasionally occurs, but in that 
distance there are eminences and trees, which act the part of barri¬ 
ers to the invasion of the malaria, but which malaria when in excess 
