268 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



tioii, placed as it is in a most healthy site and adjoining a city the 

 general health of whose European inhabitants is excellent. For years 

 past the mortality of the coloured races has considerably exceeded 

 their birth-rate, and owing to the scoui'ge of tuberculosis, essentially a 

 disease of civilisation, which is increasing its ravages amongst them 

 yearly, there is every probability that the death-rate will continue to 

 increase. The Kafir and the Fingo have but little resistance to the 

 onslaught of the bacillus of consumption, an attack of pneumonia is in 

 but too many cases the commencement of a rapid decline, and the half- 

 caste falls a still more ready victim. The rapid spread and increase of 

 tuberculosis, favoured as it is by the three factors before mentioned, is 

 a problem of the greatest interest and importance to the future pros- 

 perity of the counti-y, affecting as it does so closely the labour supply. 

 The evil is of great magnitude, and its restraint to any great extent 

 beyond the reach of legislative enactment. .\s an instance of its 

 importance I may mention that during the yea^v ending June 30th last, 

 I received 90 notifications of tuberculosis, 7o of whicii were of native 

 patients, nor does this represent the whole of the trouble. Combined 

 as it is with other I'espiratory and digestive diseases, more or less the 

 results of civilisati<jn, which decimate the coloured races, the (juestion 

 arises whethei- unless the natives are able to acquire some immunity 

 and power of resistance as the result of the survival of the fittest, the 

 present native races of this colony may not in course of time become as 

 extinct as the dodo or the aboriginal inhabitant of Tasmania. 



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