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The Queen's ratification. Dr Winchester has been nominated to be Surgeon to Her Majesty's Consulate at Amoy, and he has left for his new Station. I have supplied his place as Colonial Surgeon by Mr. Anderson, a Gentleman who has strong public claims from having formally served as Assistant Surgeon and afterwards Surgeon to the establishment of Her Majesty's Superintendent's in China, and whose professional acquirements and zeal particularly beg to be confirmed in the Situation to which I have appointed him.
Before I close this Despatch, it is my very painful duty to acquaint Your Lordship, that this Colony has been, since July last, visited by a great deal of most severe and fatal sickness. Fever in many cases the prevailing Fever has assumed a type so strongly assimilated to that which attacked the last expedition to the Niger, that the same medical description might be declared to equally well for both; in others it has taken a modified and protracted form resembling the Yellow fever of the West Indies, whilst in some instances, the Medical Officers have pronounced it to be an entirely new disease, in which patients fell sick, lingered for even weeks together, and sunk without any sufficient apparent cause, except that the most powerful Medicines had been applied without effect.