SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION IN N.S.W. 1061 
Efforts to discover its source, made at the time of its first 
appearance, failed to determine whether the blacks had had any 
previous knowledge of it ; it was found that they had a name 
for the disease (gal-gal-la), and this was supposed to indicate a 
pre-acquaintance with it ; but exactly what gal-gal-la means is 
uncertain. It is only a local name, since in other parts of the 
continent the blacks referred to small-pox as owie or bove, purrer 
purrer, meen waranna, &c. The absence of a root-relation between 
such terms indicates that at least the disease appeared amongst 
them at a comparatively late period—tlong after the separation of 
the various tribes. There is thus evidence that the disease was 
imported by some other race. The initial incidence on the southern 
part of the continent negatives the idea of importation by Malays 
or Chinese such as, it is believed, occurred in a subsequent epidemic. 
The earlier Spanish, Dutch, and English navigators who touched 
the coast of Australia, were probably not in such communication 
with the blacks as would have sufficed to introduce the disease. 
The earliest accounts we have of the blacks are those of Dampier 
(1699), and Captain Cook (1770). Dampier makes no mention 
of any disease resembling small-pox amongst the blacks, although 
those he saw were in a neighbourhood (Sharks Bay, Western 
Australia) in which small-pox was afterwardscommon. In Cook’s 
account of the blacks at Botany Bay and the Endeavour River, 
it is noted that there was no skin disease amongst them. Mr, 
Curr remarks that several independent traditions of the blacks, 
«‘ which there can be no doubt are genuine,” refer to the original 
source of the disease to the direction of Sydney. The devastation 
which the epidemic of 1789 produced indicates that it was 
incident on a virgin population, and one to whom it was an 
entirely new experience. These considerations seem sufficient to 
warrant the assumption that the epidemic above described marked 
the introduction of small-pox into Australia. 
The exact source of the epidemic is involved in obscurity. It 
has already been mentioned that there had been no small-pox in 
the English settlement before the blacks became affected. An 
opinion very generally expressed at the time was that the disease 
was derived from two French ships under the command of Comte 
de la Perouse, which remained for about two months at Botany 
Bay at the time of the foundation of the colony—January to 
March, 1788 ; but there is no reason to believe that small-pox 
existed amongst the crews of these vessels ; moreover, the epidemic 
did not appear till fifteen months after they had sailed away. There 
are certain circumstances connected with the medical history of 
the “First Fleet,” which arouse suspicion that responsibility of tae 
introduction attaches to it. It was said that, before leaving 
Plymouth, the ship’s company of the “ Alexandria” transpoit 
had “got a malignant disease amongst them of a most dangerous 
