+-----------------------------------------+ | Transcriber’s Keys | | | | A Proportion of those taken ill in the | | Course of the Month. | | | | B Proportion of Deaths, in relation to | | the Numbers of the Sick. | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ | | A | B | | DISEASES. | | | | | ONE IN | ONE IN | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ | Fevers | 13½| 16 | | | | | | Fluxes | 24 | 49 | | | | | | Scurvy | 91 | 0 | | | | | | Other Complaints | 20 | 134 | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ | General Proportion | 5½| 33 | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ The mortality this month, in relation to the whole numbers on board, was one in a hundred and thirty. There were only one in thirty-eight of the sick sent to the hospitals. The fevers arose chiefly during the first two weeks after leaving Jamaica, which renders it probable that the seeds of them were brought from thence. Had they been owing to the heat simply, they would have been as apt to arise in some subsequent part of the passage; for the tropical heats at this season of the year extend to the 30th degree of latitude, which we did not cross till the 22d of August, that is, near five weeks after leaving Jamaica. The only ships in which the fever could be imputed to infection or foul air were the Barfleur, Alcide, and the Aimable frigate. The first had received, as recruits, at Jamaica, men who had been confined for some time before in a French jail, and a fever of a bad kind spread on board of her soon after. The Aimable was a prize from the French; and the sickness was here so evidently owing to foul air, that, whenever the contents of the hold were stirred, so as to let loose the putrid effluvia, there was then an evident increase of sickness. The fever in the Alcide was of a peculiar slow kind, to be described hereafter, and seemed to be a continuation of the same infection which had so long existed in that ship. The Duke, which had hitherto been by far the most subject to fevers of any ship in the fleet, became more and more free from them even in the most early part of this passage, and might be said to be entirely so at the time she arrived in America. The fever had been so very prevalent in this ship since leaving England, that there was hardly a man who had escaped it. Could this have any effect in making them less liable to catch it a second time?