Page 137 - Dutch Asiatic Shipping Volume 1

VOC servants, even though by then the Binnen-hospitaal could accommodate about 600
patients. The Buiten-hospitaal
was established at the fortification Noordwijk, south-east
ofthetown,andthiscame tobeusedmore andmoreforthecarearsoofthesickfrom
arriving ships. After 1777, on arrival of a ship in the roadstead, the sick were taken as soon
as possible to Noordwijk. The Binnen-hospitaal
became less inviting because of its unheal-
thy situation inside the town: in 1768, for instance, when both hospitals had a capacity o f
600 patients, 1290 of the sick died in the Binnen-hospitaal as against 418 in the Buiten-hos-
pitaal. However, a report of that year also mentions that there were very many sick inside
the town so that the Binnen-hospitaal
gave out a stinking and infectious exhalation'. B y contrast, the Buiten-hospitaal
had to admit no fewer than 1400 patients 'whoall
spacious and airy and did not suffer from the ill vapours 'of the swampy coast and muddy
canals' as was then already so intelligently stated, though as we now know the danger was
not in the vapours as such. The alarming nature of disease in Batavia is also demonstrated
by the establishment of hospitals for population groups other than the V O C servants: for
orphans as early as 1635, for the Chinese in 1640, for lepers in 1666 and for Asian sailors
in 1751. It looks as if the hospitals for Company servants in Batavia were run with greater
care than was the case in the - smaller - hospital at the Cape. In Batavia there were
separate wards for the various diseases. The senior surgeon made a daily round and
prescribed the medicines to be administered that day by the orderlies. The seriously ill
20
lay on straw mattrasses, other patients on hard wooden beds, lined up in long rows.
Population and mortality figures are difficult to ascertain. In the town's heyday between
1700 and 1730 the heterogeneous population of Europeans, Chinese, Bandanese, Javane-
se, Mardijkers
souls in the city proper and 50,000 to 60,000 in the kampongs.
and slaves of varying origins is thought to have amounted to around 20,000
servants, i.e. those on the Company payroll, more information is available. According to
a record in the generale missive of 27th January 1625 some 665 men were in service, which
number increased over the next 50 years to more than 3,700. Accordingto the generale
monsterrollen which from 1687 the Hoge Regering was obliged to draw up and forward
each year, in 1724 there were 6,164 personnel in Batavia, in 1750 more than 6,300, but
in 1789 only 4,410. A large number of these servants were soldiers. Though in 1650 it was
laid down that the garrison at Batavia was to consist o f 1200 men, this number was soon
21
found to be insufficient as Batavia had to serve as reservoir for all Asiatic possessions.
From time to time members of the Hoge Regering disclosed plans for colonization from
Europe and for the development of an economically strong citizenry, independent of the
Company. B u t such ideas failed to get a response from the directors. T h e Heren
Zeventien
stuck rigidly to the primacy of the Company's monopoly and thus the free citizens in
Batavia were deprived o f any scope for developing significant commercial enterprises.
Yet Chinese merchants were lured to the city - in itstrade with China theVOCwas
largely dependent on them - and in the course of the seventeenth century many Chinese
settled in the town. The role they played in the development of the town came to an
20 ARA, Collectie Hope 8464, 5 (for the number of those in the hospitals in 1768); Schoute, Occi-
dental Therapeutics; Van Gorkom, 'Ongezond Batavia', 177.
21 Coolhaas, Generale Missiven I, 171 (in the number for 1635 are included: soldiers, shipwrights,
craftsmen, merchants, clerics and schoolboys.) Van Dam, Beschryvinge, vol. 87, 295-298, figures
for 1670-1693. The figures of the various lists of seafarers, military and the sick, etc., have been
added up. For data on the 18th century see Lequin, Het personeel, 379-380. The size of the total
population between 1676/80 and 1786/90 inBlussé, 'Aninsane administration',68.
On the numbers of Company
was more