CHAPTER VII.
Appearance among the natives of a disease resembling the small-pox—Origin and progress of that malady among the aborigines—Medical investigations—Plan of treatment—Variety of forms assumed by the disease—Its duration—The critical period—Dr. Mair’s report.
About two years previous an eruptive febrile disease made its appearance among the natives of Wellington Valley, resembling the small-pox in its principal characters. Some alarm was experienced in consequence among the Europeans, to whose children the disease had as yet been fortunately unknown. About a year after I was informed it prevailed among the aborigines at the Lachlan, Burragorang, and Cox’s river, and I remarked that several of the blacks at Goulburn Plains, and also at other parts of the colony, had pits on their faces, resembling those produced by small-pox, and which, they informed me, were caused by the disease in question. The name that this disease is known by among the aborigines is “Thunna, thunna,” or “Túnna, tunna,” and they describe it as being attended by sore-throat, head-ache, and high febrile symptoms, upon the day previous to the appearance of the eruptions; the latter were described to me as commencing in a similar manner, and passing through the same stages as is usual in small-pox, covering the face and all parts of the body, even to the soles of the feet and palms of the hands: it was also stated that adults were more covered with eruptions, and suffered more severely from the disease, than children, and the aggravation of the symptoms caused much mortality among them. Among the children it often occurred that only a few scattered eruptions would appear, and the febrile symptoms also assume a very mild character. No deaths occurred in these cases.
As far as our information at present extends, it appears not to be an introduced disease, or at least we have no facts to prove such being the case. It is mentioned in “Tench’s Account of the Colony of New South Wales, 1795,” that several natives had marks resembling those left by the eruptions of small-pox, and which I have no doubt originated from the disease, the subject of this chapter. Several old men were marked by it; and I understand that during the time it prevailed among the aborigines at Wellington Valley, they did not regard it as of foreign introduction; they considered it contagious, and when one party was attacked by this formidable disease, the others deserted them, to avoid being infected. None of the soldier’s children stationed at Wellington Valley took the disorder, although the blacks about the settlement were suffering from it; the children never had had the small-pox, but I could not be informed whether they had been vaccinated.
This disease excited so much attention during the time it prevailed,[57] that the government were induced to send a medical gentleman into the interior to report upon, and give his opinion regarding, its nature. Dr. Mair, assistant-surgeon of the thirty-ninth regiment, was deputed to this office. A more judicious selection could not have been made, although it may be regretted that his arrival was too late to observe its progress through the different stages, but he indefatigably devoted himself to procure such information as would place the nature of the disease almost beyond a doubt. The result was a collection of most interesting information upon its progress, character, &c., although several interesting points are still open for further medical observation and inquiry. On my return to Sydney, Dr. Mair kindly favoured me with a copy of the report he made to the colonial government, and I have availed myself of many of his remarks, and have devoted a chapter to the subject, regarding it as one interesting to non-medical, as well as medical readers, as the same disease, or at all events one very closely allied to it, has been, and still too often is, the cause of much domestic misery and suffering.
As far back as the year 1789, says Dr. Mair in his report, an eruptive disorder, resembling the small-pox, broke out among the aborigines, and proved extensively fatal: its marks are still to be seen on the bodies of several of them of very advanced age, corresponding in appearance with the pits left by the small-pox. From that distant period no similar disease had been observed among them, till about the month of August, 1830, when Mr. Brown, of Wallerowang, first saw this eruptive malady in five blacks, near the river Castlereagh, two in the incipient, and three in more advanced stages. He had, however, heard of its existence among the tribes to the northward six months before. One of these men was afterwards seen by Mr. Brown with pits like those of small-pox, on different parts of his body; and he ascertained that the others had died of the disease. Mr. Brown did not meet with any more cases of the disease till the beginning of August, 1831, when it manifested itself in three blacks, who had been in close communication with some others recently arrived from the Lachlan, and who had but a short time recovered sufficiently to be able to travel. These men stated that the disease had been raging in their part of the country, and that several had died of it. Some of the Wallerowang blacks, convinced of its contagious nature, had fled to Emu plains to escape infection; three of the number having afterwards returned were seized with it.
At Wellington Valley the same malady was first remarked, (as near as could be ascertained,) in October last year, (1830,) and continued to affect the blacks in that vicinity to December. The poor creatures blamed Captain Sturt for its introduction,[58] were much alarmed about it, and are represented as having anticipated some grievous calamity; a great fire and flood were predicted by one of their sages, which would come from Mount Harris and destroy them. From the testimony of George Clark, a convict, who had resided with the native tribes, far in the interior, for several years, and was lately taken prisoner by the mounted police the disease proceeded from the north-west coast, and spared none of the tribes as far as Liverpool Plains, attacking twenty and thirty at a time, none escaping its fury. The king, or chief of the tribe among whom Clark had been naturalized, was first seized with it, and died, as had been predicted by the kradjee, or physician and soothsayer. He had previously been with a tribe situated near the sea, and it is probable may have seen the disease before, although he disclaimed having any but supernatural knowledge of it.
The plan of treatment followed in the case of the king was immersion in cold water; four persons of less note underwent the same, and only one survived. The consequence was, that other medicinal measures were thought of, and the cold-bath was stigmatized and abandoned. Scorching the hair from the head, and pricking the pustules with a sharp-pointed fish bone, then squeezing out the fluid contained in them with the flat part of the instrument, was the next mode of cure adopted by the kradjee; and it is worthy of remark, that the operation suggested itself to him from the observation that the pustules burst spontaneously, and discharged whitish matter, in the first case of recovery.
It is curious, observes Dr. Mair, that the very same process was recommended by Avicenna, the celebrated Arabian physician, who flourished in the tenth century of the Christian era, and gave the first complete history of the small-pox, with this only difference, that the learned author used a more elegant instrument, a golden needle! and even in the present day the same practice is approved of by the best writers on the subject. The new method of treatment was attended with happier results than the old, only one out of six dying of the malady; and if, continues Dr. Mair, instead of entirely relinquishing the cold-bath, it had still been employed with judicious caution, the mortality might have been further reduced.
The kradjee, priest, soothsayer, or physician, (for he appears to exercise the functions of each,) goes through many superstitious ceremonies to cure his patient, with rods of two or three yards in length, which he fixes in the earth in a crescentic form, and addresses with a variety of gestures. The common people place implicit faith in his predictions; and it is asserted by Clark, that they sometimes bury alive those whom in his medical capacity he has abandoned. They believe the disease to be infectious, but do not shun one another on that account; they name it “Boulol.” The Lachlan and Wellington Valley tribes call it Thunna, thunna; and Dr. Mair also says that he heard a most lugubrious dirge chaunted at a Corrobera at Bathurst, commemorative of this destructive epidemic, and judged accurately of its nature from the melancholy note and solemn manner of the pageant.
Dr. Mair continues to state in his report, that the disease seems to have assumed a considerable variety of forms in different individuals, but from the concurrent testimony of all the observers who were consulted, the following symptoms may be considered as common to all of them. For several successive days the patient feels languid, indolent, and oppressed, loses his appetite, suffers from head-ache, pain of chest or stomach, increased heat of skin, and other febrile symptoms. The usual duration of this incipient stage appears to have been from two to eight days. It was followed by an eruption of small red spots, resembling flea-bites, which generally commenced on the face, and gradually spread more or less thickly over the head, breast, and extremities; the tongue and lips were likewise involved in the eruption, and the soles of the feet have been particularly remarked in many instances to be numerously studded with it.
When the eruption had fully developed itself, which generally occurred in twenty-four hours, a remission was observed to take place in the febrile symptoms, but the patient began to complain much of pain in the throat, and could only swallow liquids. The small red spots, or papulæ, were converted into vesicles or pustules, in periods, varying from three to seven or eight days; the fluid contained in these vesicles or pustules is represented by some as resembling whey, by others milk, and by others to be yellowish or straw-coloured, like the thin pus of sores. It was likewise described as bloody water. When at their height they were about the size of a pea. One very intelligent lady, who had witnessed its effects in several of the blacks, informed me the eruption was very like the cow-pock. The greater number of persons who had watched its progress, and who had likewise seen the small-pox in England, pronounced it to be that disorder. Scabs formed and fell off at different periods, in different cases, according to the length of time occupied by the maturation of the vesicles or pustules; these were occasionally confluent on the nose and cheeks, and frequently left permanent marks or indentations on the skin.
Its usual duration is stated to have been from a fortnight to three weeks in cases of restoration to health; but even after the eruption had entirely subsided, and the disease might be considered over, the convalescents were unable to walk for a long time, owing to the tenderness of their feet, from which the cuticle had entirely separated. In many cases the other sequelæ of the disease were very distressing; some lost their eye-sight, others had abscesses in different parts of the body, or foul and tedious ulcers, with great debility and emaciation. Death was said to happen generally among the Lachlan and Wellington Valley blacks about the third day after the appearance of the eruption; the tongue became much swollen, and covered with livid spots, the breathing greatly oppressed, and deglutition impracticable. Secondary fever was seldom observed, and when it occurred seemed owing to cold; but the rarity of secondary fever is easily explained by the early fatality of the disease in the severe cases in which only it could have been expected. Some were said to have perished at the very onset of the malady, before there was the slightest sign of eruption.
Among the tribes to the north-west of Liverpool Plains, the disease seems to have approached more nearly to the description of confluent small-pox, as it is met with in Europe. The eruption coalescing on the face, and being followed in a day or two by salivation, (or as Clark describes it, water pouring from the mouth as they lay on the ground,) about the 10th or 12th day, a sort of convulsive or epileptic fit took place, and afterwards the fluid from the mouth was of a bloody appearance, and more viscid, so as to be discharged with great difficulty.
This was considered the critical period, and was speedily followed by death, unless the patient soon after began to rally. The great difficulty and danger of this disease, (the confluent small-pox,) says Huxham, chiefly comes on at the state or turn of the pox; for however easily matters may have proceeded till this time, we are now (viz. the 7th, 9th, or 11th day from the eruption) very often surprised with a very shocking change, and terrible symptoms. The salivation and viscid discharge from the mouth are particularly described by Sydenham, and other eminent writers on this disease.
It has been remarked, by most of the eyewitnesses of this epidemic, that it proved chiefly fatal to adults and old people, seldom to children, and that those who had suffered from it at a former period, as indicated by the marks on their skin, escaped it altogether, while there were few other cases of exemption. Dr. Mair proceeds to give, in his report, cases in which some Europeans were attacked by it, on which he has made some very excellent observations, and I regret that my limits will oblige me to exclude them from this work. Dr. Mair observes, that he met with no opposition on the part of the aborigines in his wishes to extend to them the inestimable benefits of vaccination; those who had not suffered from the late epidemic, viewed their escape as accidental, and while its frightful symptoms and dire effects were yet fresh in their memories they were willing to submit to a simple operation, which, they were told, would henceforth protect them against the disease. Dr. Mair thus concludes his interesting and valuable report.
“1. The eruptive febrile disease, which lately prevailed among the aborigines, was contagious, or communicable from one person to another, and capable of being propagated by inoculation.
“2. It approached more nearly in its symptoms to the character of small-pox than any other disease with which we are acquainted, particularly to that species of small-pox described by Staff-surgeon Marshall, as occurring in the Kandyan provinces in 1819.[59]
“3. The mortality attending the disease varied from one in three to one in five or six, but might have been less if the persons labouring under it had been sheltered from the weather, and attended by physicians.
“4. Vaccination seemed to possess a controlling power over it, as three blacks who had been successfully vaccinated, although equally exposed to the disease, escaped infection.
“5. It was not confined to the aborigines, but in one instance attacked a European in the form of secondary small-pox, and proved fatal to a child with symptoms resembling confluent small-pox.
“6. In several cases it occasioned blindness, and left many of the poor blacks in a very debilitated and helpless condition, with marks which could not be distinguished from the pits of small-pox on different parts of their bodies.
“7. It was never observed to attack any of the aborigines a second time, and it spread alarm and consternation among them.” Soon after Dr. Mair’s report was sent in to the Colonial Government, an official notice was published in the “Sydney Gazette,” requesting parents to have their children vaccinated.