Prior to the completion and occupation of Grey’s hospital, a row of cottages was rented as a hospital; prior to this the gaol and hospital were under one roof.
SAMUEL GOWER, M.R.C.S. Engl., &c. {56}
Change of Diet and irregular Habits.—There is one very striking difference between the semi-civilized native and the one fresh from his original habits and mode of life. The one is more subject to inflammatory diseases than the other, from which the former does not so readily recover as the latter. Wounds and injuries of a very serious character readily admit of reparation; for instance, a native falls on a stake, which penetrated (by the side of the “sphincter ani”) the bladder; he walked 10 miles, and arrived at hospital with a pendulous coagulum at the mouth of the urethra. The catheter was used; urine and blood escaped, and continued to flow for a day or two; in a week he returned home quite well.
Civilization increases the proneness to Disease and the facility to succumb to its Power.—Skin diseases are more prevalent among the natives than the settlers. Phthisis carries off a great number; exposure to extremes is the cause. The subject requires to be treated at full length.
ED. W. HOLLAND, M.R.C.S.
MELBOURNE. VICTORIA.
Mr. Thomas, who has for 20 years been the guardian of the tribes contiguous to Melbourne, furnishes a statement, showing during that period 210 deaths as compared with 28 births, and, as he adds in a note, that of the children born most died before the first month was over, it cannot be expected that these tribes, now reduced to only 35 individuals in all, will be long in existence.
Making every allowance, indeed, for the effects of European vices, and especially of intemperance, by which quarrels are fomented, and exposure to cold and damp and disease produced, there is, it must be confessed, something mysterious in that deterioration of the savage which succeeds the introduction of civilization,—and which can hardly be more forcibly described than in the language of the old man quoted by Mr. Goodwin,—“before white fellow came, black fellow could run like emu, but now supposing big one run, then big one tired, and plenty heart jump about.”