FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS OF BRITISH 
GUIANA. 
By Dr. J. 8S. Watupringe, LATE GovernMenT Mepicat OFFICER. 
I commenced my life at a very early age by being born. I did not, like Topsy, 
just grow up, nor just appear like Adam, nor did I come down from a cabbage 
tree although tradition warranted such a belief. I was born in Georgetown, 
British Guiana. Most people know now where Georgetown is. A visitor 
to the colony some years ago described the ignorance which prevailed formerly 
as follows :—“ The Colony of Demerara is supposed to be an island, Essequibo 
to be in Mexico,” and in the Edinburgh Almanack of 1831 Berbice is placed 
among the Bahama Islands. My birth was not registered. There was no 
registration of births until 25 years after my birth. I have had to trust to 
hearsay evidence as regards the details of my infancy, but being only a “ com- 
mon or garden doctor,’’ and not alawyer, I have accepted the evidence. I have 
been told that years ago where now the Atlantic surf strikes the Sea Wall a 
beach a mile or more long stretched out to sea. Upon this beach as an infant 
I was carried by my nurse. In 1845 this beach no longer existed ; it had been 
washed away. At this time there was : good deal that was negative about 
Georgetown. There were no trams, no trains, no telegrams, no Colonial post- 
age stamps, no postmen, no cabs, no electric light, no gas light. Georgetown 
was not yet acity There was no Town Hall. Few steamers entered the port 
of Georgetown, and the sailing vessels which traded here remained in port for 
long periods. In one of these vessels I left the colony in 1849. In another of 
these vessels I returned to the colony in 1855. 
As a child I was duly vaccinated, castor-oiled and worm-medicined. My father 
had no conscientious objections to vaccination, and any objections I may have 
had were ignored, and accordingly I was vaccinated. Dr. Clifton was the 
operator. I remember him well, and so, I believe, do many of the older people 
in Georgetown. The doctor was a fine old gentleman, a popular doctor, and 
a Catholic. At one time in the local history of the Catholic Church here Clifton 
showed the courage of his opinions. Since being vaccinated by Dr. Clifton, 
I have been re-vaccinated twice. My father was inoculated in England. 
When a child I went through the usualrun of children’s diseases ; I had 
measles, chicken-pox, and scarlet fever. The popularidea formerly was that 
everybody had to get these diseases, and that the sooner they were got the 
better. Thus much disease preventable—and sometimes fatal—was handed 
down from father to son, like anentailed estate. The people in this country are 
very fatalistic. A common saying was—“ If you go get sick you go get am, and 
when you time come fo’ go, you got fo’ go.’’ This fatalism was shown in connec- 
tion with diseases other than those called “ children’s diseases.”’ In the case of 
small-pox and yellow fever similar fatalism was exhibited and attempts at 
isolation and prevention were resisted and ridiculed. Having run 
