SMALL-POX AND VACCINATION IN N.S.W. 1063 
II, VACCINATION, 
It is a deplorable fact that this system of quarantine has led to 
neglect of vaccination. 
The surgeons of the “ First Fleet” are said to have brought 
out “variolous matter’ with them. Exactly what is meant by 
“variolous matter” is not clear, but in any case there is no 
record of their ever having made use of it. 
On the 4th of May, 1803, Captain Phillip Gidley King, R.N., 
the Governor of New South Wales, addressed a letter to Lord 
Hobart, Secretary of State, suggesting that ‘“ vaccine matter” 
should be sent to the Colony. In this letter he states that 
‘‘every search has been made on the teats of our cows (for 
cow-pox) but nothing of the kind can be found.” In response to 
the Governor’s letter a supply of vaccine lympth, obtained from 
the Royal Jennerian Society, was despatched in the ‘‘Coromandell” 
transport, which arrived in Sydney, on May 7th 1804. By the 
same vessel there also arrived a second packet of lymph forwarded 
to Assistant Surgeon Savage, by Mr. John Ring, Member of the 
Medical Council, which was “ put upin a different way from that 
sent by the Royal Jennerian Society.” 
On receipt of the lymph, the principal surgeon (Dr Thomas 
Jamieson), immediately vaccinated three children at the Orphan 
Asylum ; several of the soldiers’ children were vaccinated by 
Mr. John Harris, surgeon to the New South Wales Corps ; and 
some other persons by Mr. Savage. 
Their efforts were successful, for a notice which appeared on 
June 3rd, 1804, stated that “ the cow-pox is now fully established 
in the Colony,” and invited parents to have their children 
vaccinated. This invitation appears to have been generally 
accepted, since Governor King, on sending some ‘‘ vaccine 
matter” to Norfolk Island, in July, 1804, wrote—(vaccination) 
“succeeded so well here that most part of the children in the 
Colony have received the inoculation.” 
After this, vaccine lymph appears to have died out and been 
reintroduced at intervals, the supplies coming from England, 
and in one instance, at least, from Norfolk Island. 
More recently the Colony has had a constant though small 
supply, derived from England until 1881, and since that time 
from Victoria and New Zealand, both of which colonies have 
established vaccine stations. No lymph is cultivated in New 
South Wales, though the necessity for it has been frequently 
urged, and the disastrous effects of such unpreparedness, which 
may be expected should an epidemic occur, have been pointed 
out time after time. 
