  The van der Waals (VDW) equation of state predicts the existence of a
first-order liquid-gas phase transition and contains a critical point. The VDW
equation with Fermi statistics is applied to a description of the nuclear
matter. The nucleon number fluctuations near the critical point of nuclear
matter are studied. The scaled variance, skewness, and kurtosis diverge at the
critical point. It is found that the crossover region of the phase diagram is
characterized by the large values of the scaled variance, the almost zero
skewness, and the significantly negative kurtosis. The rich structures of the
skewness and kurtosis are observed in the phase diagram in the wide region
around the critical point, namely, they both may attain large positive or
negative values.
