THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 301 



Many, lest they should be told to avoid these, abstained 

 from procuring foreign medicine. Nine-tenths of the 

 deaths could have been prevented by care in diet. The 

 worst cases of diarrhoea and dysentery brought to me 

 yielded to treatment. Cases under one's own personal 

 supervision, and where instructions were followed, 

 recovered. With the common strumous diathesis it 

 has excited no surprise to see so many adults as well as 

 children sufFei'ing from enlarged suppurating glands in 

 cervical and submaxillary regions, and in the groin, 

 &c. ; not a few had parotid abscess with suppuration. 

 Numerous abortions and cases of premature labour 

 occurred, but none died with . ordinary treatment. 

 Single and multiple abscesses are an every-day occur- 

 rence here, but these have multiplied nearly tenfold 

 since the advent of measles. Before the rash had dis- 

 appeared a large number of adults passed intestinal 

 worms by the mouth. 



" Now that two months have elapsed since the last 

 case of fever and rash, a mild persistent form of remit- 

 tent fever is prevailing. This with glandular and 

 respiratory affections are the most common ailments at 

 this season. 



" In the mission dispensary I am daily seeing cases of 

 sickness the starting-point of which was measles. Tlie 

 two epidemics of influenza at the end of 1891 and 

 January 1893 increased the tendency of Samoans to chest 

 affections. Measles will be found to have still further 

 intensified their susceptibility to respiratoiy diseases ; 

 and the frequent deaths, as well as the many debilitated 

 natives one daily meets with, give evidence that we 

 have not yet reached the end of the measles ej^idemic — 

 an epidemic which will long be remembered, as not one 

 of the entire population seems to have escaped." — Dr. 

 Davis, British Medical Journal, May 19, 1894. 



Judging from the above, it is evident that whenever 

 measles has proved especially fatal to the individuals of an 

 Old World race, it was when they were placed under very 

 abnormal conditions — when their vitality was reduced 



