OF THE ISLANDS NEAR SINGAPORE, 
ing the bay is a large patch of living coral, over which the wind in 
the N.E. monsoon blows, and then over the island. During that 
time the inhabitants assured us they were sickly , many dying from 
dimam kapiblu (remittent fever) but during the S.W. monsoon 
which blows first over the island and then over the coral, they were 
healthy , which was their state at the time we visited them. 
Having finished the examination of the adjacent islands, the vil¬ 
lages on the coast of Singapore now claim our attention. We have 
already in the first part of this essay glanced at the condition of part 
of Singapore town, built in the native fashion, inhabited by them, and 
known as Kampong Bugis, Kampong Malacca, Bukit Passu &c., in 
all of which we found the inhabitants (in spite of the filth and dirt 
which surrounded them and the poluted atmosphere which they in¬ 
cessantly breathed) healthy and never subject to endemic fever. This 
immunity from fever I have shewn is dependent on these localities be-, 
ing subject to tidal influence, by which the impurities, as decompos¬ 
ing vegetable and animal matter, are carried away instead of being 
allowed to remain to form the germs of malaria; and in addition, 
what germs are formed, are destroyed, their death being almost 
simultaneous with their formation, by sulphuretted hydrogen, form¬ 
ed by the decomposition of saline sulphates and organic matter. 
While such influences save these localities from endemic fever, it 
does not prevent occasional epidemics from bursting forth, for in¬ 
stance K&mpong Malacca, which is and has been for years entirely 
free from fever, was 5 years ago afflicted with an epidemic of di¬ 
mam kapifelu or remittent fever, and 15 years previous to that, my 
informant was himself attacked with the fever and cured by a decoc¬ 
tion of the leaves of the Picha Firing, a species of Gaudinea. 
When I examined Kampong Bugis, in which are about 50 houses, 
densely populated, and close to one another and built on the sides 
of two rivers which meet, I found only one case of dimam kapifelu 
or remittent fever and the infection of that was caught on the Ma¬ 
lay Peninsula, while the subject was gathering gitta. I could not 
even learn that it had been epidemic. One person said 2 years ago, 
they had it very bad, but on cross-examination I found that only chil¬ 
dren had been attacked and the disease was small-pox, on hearing 
which I began to rail at my informant for attempting to mislead 
me, when he answmred (( have you not dimam in both diseases ?” this 
is a lesson for strangers to the native character to profit by. 
From Kampong Bugis to the eastward the next village is Siglap, 
g 2 
