Though inflammatory complaints are rare in this climate, yet in a few of the ships there was some appearance of them; and I remarked that they occurred in those ships which were in other respects most healthy, and most free from infection. A good many of the men were seized with inflammatory sore throats in the Bellona a few days before she arrived at Barbadoes, and this was in other respects the most healthy ship next to the Union and Ruby. In the Union there was no violent acute complaint whatever, which was very singular among so great a body of men; but several rheumatisms, coughs, and catarrhs, arose in her this month, and there even occurred two pleurisies in the following month. The bowel complaints which occurred on board of this ship were also of an inflammatory nature. These distempers seemed to proceed from accidental exposure and irregularity; and is it not highly probable that these causes, instead of producing local inflammatory complaints, might have been the means of exciting bad fevers and fluxes, as in the other ships, had the men been equally predisposed to them, by living in foul air, or under the influence of infection? The following tables will shew the comparative state of health of the two squadrons in the three first months of next year. TABLE, shewing the Prevalence of Sickness and Mortality in the old Squadron in January, 1783. +-----------------------------------------+ | 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 | 67 | 70 | | Fluxes | 157 | 0 | | Scurvy | 44 | 0 | | Ulcers | 0 | 0 | | Other Complaints | 48 | 117 | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ | General Proportion | 12½| 214 | +-----------------------+--------+--------+ The mortality this month, in relation to the whole number on board, was one in twelve hundred and fifty-seven. About one fifteenth of all the sick were sent to the hospital. TABLE, shewing the Prevalence of Sickness and Mortality in the new Squadron in January, 1783.