Page 184 - Dutch Asiatic Shipping Volume 1

of care of the sick has been described. The two hospitals equipped for the care of Company servants were expected, when ships from home arrived, to cope with their sick as well. For the eighteenth century some figures are known for numbers of sick in the Binnen-hos- pitaal and for deaths in the Binnen- and Buiten-hospitaal, while from 1715 to 1770 the numbers of deceased Company servants for the whole of Batavia are available. This can be seen in table 34.
Table 34: Sickness and deathrate of VOC servants in Batavia49
1715-1720 1720-1725 1725-1730 1730-1735 1735-1740 1740-1745 1745-1750 1750-1755 1755-1760 1760-1765
1765-1767 1773-1775
1775-1780 1780-1785
arrivals from Europe
27,500 30,800 23,300 26,100 28,700 22,600 26,800 30,300 24,300 24,900
12,300 ?
7 7
in Batavia Binnen- per year hospital
3,700 314 5,500 417 5,100 400 4,900 516 5,200 659 4,700 671 5,400 793 5,400 850 5,000 7 4,700 7
5,400 711 4,500 433
3,800 245 3,500 76
Buiten- hospital
2,948 3,695 3,533 5,620 7,465 6,639 8,220 8,814 7,220 7,651
4,443 1,114
9,135 4,363
servants in Batavia
3,290 4,027 3,860 6,158 8,054 7,177 8,918 9,602 7,724 8,142
4,778
7
7 7
sickrate deathrate total personnel perday, Binnen-and deathrate
Although these figures illustrate the extent to which disease and death could rage among Company servants in Batavia, they say little about disease and death among those newly arrived in Batavia from the outward voyage. W e have to abide by the supposition that there were many of them among the victims recorded in these figures - we simply do not know how many. Having completed the long voyage from Europe, worn out and sick sailors a n d soldiers found themselves facing death even at their first point o f destination, directly on arrival or after a short time in the dangerous town of Batavia. Would a loss of 3% to 4% of those arriving in Asia be probable?
Conclusion
It is good, after this tale of misery on board ship and ashore, of sickness and death en route and shortly after arrival in the Cape or Asia, to realize that even so the majority of
49 Lequin,'Het personeel'II,386; Schoute,Geneeskunde, 199,202,220,238 andidem, Occidental therapeutics, 52, 56-57, 67-68, 80-81; Van Gorkom, 'Ongezond Batavia', 189-190. Corrections of and additions to Schoute's figures are based on A R A , Coll. Hope 8464, 1, 2, 5; V O C 785, Copieresoluties GG en Raden 30-12-1755,286v, 297-311; VOC 817, ibidem 27-10-1786,312v and VOC 3219, OBP 1769, 1725-1726.