14 DISEASES OF [ PART L 



but threw them into the sea. One of the symptoms 

 was that the patient lost all his hair. When the 

 northern tribes had recovered, they made war on 

 those at Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, and to the 

 southward, expecting to find them so weakened by 

 the disease as to be incapable of resistance. Epi- 

 demics are still common in the island, but only 

 amongst the natives, and seldom attack the Euro- 

 peans. The disease is a bad form of influenza, a 

 malignant catarrh of the bronchise, with congestion 

 of the lungs, affection of the heart, accompanied 

 by fever and great prostration of strength, so that 

 in all cases an early supporting treatment must be 

 adopted. In former times these epidemics may have 

 been transient, and the patient may have usually 

 recovered his former health; but at present they 

 attack constitutions already weakened and corrupted, 

 and not only prove fatal to people of all ages, but, 

 even if the health is to a certain degree restored, it 

 does not recover its former vigour ; chronic disorders 

 often remain, and with them a disposition to fall 

 victims to the slightest attack of illness of any sort. 

 The consequence is, that the number of the abori- 

 gines in New Zealand rapidly decreases a strange 

 and melancholy, but undeniable, fact! It may be 

 that it is one of Nature's eternal laws that some 

 races of men, like the different kinds of organic 

 beings, plants, and animals, stand in opposition to each 

 other; that is to say, where one race begins to 

 spread and increase, the other, which is perhaps less 



