LEPRA IN AUSTRALIA. 1041 
Sydney was the original seat of Government for the continent, 
and for many years was consequently the repository for all archives 
touching Australia and Tasmania—Tasmania being usually 
reckoned a part of Australia, from which it begun to be: separated 
by the rather narrow Bass Strait only during Tertiary times. The 
collection of books touching this country in the Public Library at 
Sydney numbers about 5,000. Gentlemen officially concerned in 
tabulating and preparing the old official archives for the Press are 
of opinion that there is no mention of leprosy down to the year 
1836 at all events, nor of any disease under which lepra might be 
supposed to lie hile on the other hand, information as 6 all 
diseases down to that date, and for long afterwards, is extremely 
meagre. The works of several explorers of note which deal with 
widetracts of country on different parts of the continent, and which 
were written from about 1830 onwards, contain no reference to 
anything resembling lepra among the autochthons, with a single 
exception ; and in that case there 1s nothing to show that the word 
“leprosy” was not used in its banal sense, the writer, who was not 
a medical man, probably intending merely to emphasise the 
disgusting character of some skin disease. Several explorers of 
note have informed me that they have never met with any disease 
among the aboriginals which they suppose might be leprosy ; nor, 
after looking at many photographs of lepers, did they hesitate to 
adhere to that statement. Among these gentlemen was the late 
Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.R.S., &c., 
&e., who spoke chiefly of the south- western part of the continent 
about the year 1847, and of a part of the Northern Territory about 
1855. It may be taken, in my opinion, that there is no record 
of lepra among the primeval ‘autochthons in any part of the 
continent. 
Comprehension of the progress of white settlement will be 
facilitated if it be remembered that Australia has an area of just 
3,000,000 square miles; that the earliest Government at Sydney 
was the Government of Australia; that distant parts were settled 
by sea as became possible, and were gradually erected into separate 
Crown colonies; and that all these Crown colonies (always 
including Tasmania) were at different dates granted the right of 
self-government, and thereby became autonomous States. The 
net result has been that Australia is divided into the following 
territories, which became self-governing at the dates mentioned : 
Tasmania, 1854; Western Australia, 1890 ; South Austra!ia, (with 
which is ihe Northern Territory), 1856: ; Victoria, 1851; New South 
Wales, 1851 ; Queensland, 1859. For the first sixty or sixty-five 
years the population was practically entirely English. In 1851 
the discovery of gold led to the immediate influx of large numbers 
of people who came from almost every country, and from almost 
every recognised leprosy area in the world to New South Wales 
OCU 
