Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 474

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1841.

Report of M. M. S. Hospital at Chusan.

never long enough to cause the canals to be frozen over.

455

Little

snow fell during the winter, and never in sufficient quantity to cover the plain. The hills round the city were once only capped with snow for three or four days. The natives of the island said that the cold of winter was frequently much more severe, that ice was very thick, and that much snow lay in the vallies.

It may be asked,-seeing the favorable position of the island (in lat. 30° N., and long. 122° 5′ E.), and the comparative mildness of the climate,—does much disease exist among the natives themselves, or was it from particular causes alone that the British troops suffered so severely while located there?

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Several intelligent Chinese, when questioned on the subject of the prevalence of fever, said, that it was very common over the whole island, but especially so in the vallies where the fields were kept con- stantly under water, and that during last year disease prevailed to a very much greater degree than is generally the case, and this not only on the island of Chusan, but about Ningpo, Chinhae, Hang- chow foo, and other places. Indeed the number of Chinese, who were seen to be suffering under fever or its consequences, was very great. Some parts of the city, being very low and damp, were ex- tremely unhealthy; of this the cheheën, or magistrate's office, was a striking example, for of the whole number of British officers, civil and military, who lived there, not one escaped severe attacks, either of fever or dysentery, and the place had to be evacuated, and other quarters chosen for the magistracy. There can be no doubt that the malaria exists to a powerful degree, in nearly the whole of the val- lies, arising from the excessive moisture in which the surface of the ground is kept by the banking up of the streams from the hills, and during wet weather the canals and dikes overflow, and the country is flooded with water. During the summer months, the days are very hot; and at night the dews are exceedingly heavy, so that if any one be exposed at this time, their clothes soon become saturated with moisture.

As to the reasons to be assigned for the degree of sickness that prevailed among the troops while at Chusan, this is not the place to speak fully of them, and doubtless the medical gentlemen connected with the force will publish portions of their own reports. But a few of the causes may be hinted at, of which the most prominent were→ the laborious but unavoidable duties which the men had to perform- their exposure to the sun by day and to the heavy dews by night, united to which was the want of fresh provisions, which could not at