262 Report 8. A. A. Advancement of Science. 



of this principle and of the disastrous eflfects of the introduction into 

 virgin human soil of a disease, perhaps regarded as of small importance 

 by races which had, so to speak, beconie "salted " to it. The enormous 

 importance of the part which the operation of this principle has pla5'ed 

 in the history of nations and races, and in the present distribution of 

 the human race, has hitherto been rarely recognised. It is probable 

 that, with the exception of malaria, tlie New World prior to the land- 

 ing of Columbus was free from diseases of the zymotic type. Small- 

 pox, when introduced into the West Indies in 1507, exterminated 

 whole tribes. In Mexico it destroyed three and a half millions of 

 people. At least six millions of North American Indians died of the 

 disease. Measles, introduced into certain of the Pacific Islands, spread 

 like a flame and destroyed many tliousands of lives. More recently, 

 a batch of Esquimaux brought to Europe died of this disease to a man. 

 Analogous examples could be quoted in the case of scarlet fever. In 

 not a few instances tuberculosis has completed, or is rapidly complet- 

 ing, the process of extinction which the more volatile infections began. 

 The Tasmanians iiave gone, the Caribs, the Red Indians, and the 

 aborigines of cold and temperate South America are going fast. The 

 Australians and Maoris are but a dwindling remnant. As a recent 

 writer. Dr. G. A. Reid, puts it, " As surely as the trader with his 

 clothes or the missionary with his church and school-room appears, the 

 work of extermination begins on Polynesian Islands. Tiu'oughout 

 the wliole extent of the New World, the only pure aborigines who 

 seem destined to persist are those which live remote in mountains, or 

 in the deptlis of fever-haunted forests, where the white man is unable 

 to build the towns and cities with which he has studded the cooler 

 and moie 'healtliy' regions of the north and south." After centuries 

 of exposure to tuberculosis, the highly susceptible strains in the Euro- 

 pean races have been weeded out, possibly a certain amount of here- 

 ditary- increase of resistance has been conferi-ed by those who have 

 been attacked and have recovered, and in this way the present genera- 

 tion of Europeans, the progeny of the survivors of this process of 

 elimination, have come to possess a comparatively high power of re- 

 sisting this disease. AVith the South African native, on the other 

 hand, the process is only beginning. Whether he will go the way of 

 the Tasmanian and the Carib, or whether a reduced but resistant race 

 will eventuallv emerge, it is at present imj^ossible to say with certainty. 

 The South AtVican native races have, however, successfully withstood 

 the assaults of the more volatile infections ; indeed, they exhibit an 

 exceptionally high resisting power to scarlet fever and measles, and in 

 the case of buljonic plague a resistance about mid-way between that of 

 the European and that of the Asiatic. 



These and other considerations in the case of the Kafir races 

 di.->tinctly point to at least a marked reduction in the rate of increase 

 in the not far distant future, but with the probability of ultimate 

 recovery. With the Bechuana and Hottentot races, on the other hand, 

 I fear the balance of probability inclines towards decimation and per- 

 haps ultimate extinction. 



