Newman.—Is New Zealand a Healthy Country ? 499 
sufferer and is not acquired here. It is singular that hydatids should not 
exist here, for they are very prevalent in Australia, and dogs are numerous 
and live in intimate communion with man. 
Skin diseases.—-Owing to the well-to-do character of the people, the small 
amount of segregation and the abundance of good food, skin diseases are far 
less common in the colony than at home. A little acne, eczema or psori- 
asis and liver compose the bulk of the cases. 
Constitutional.—The tubercular diathesis is abundant and perhaps as- 
sumes a greater prominence because the others are rarer. In young New 
Zealanders this diathesis far exceeds all the others. Struma exists but in 
modified forms. The population are so well off, and so abundantly supplied 
with good healthy food and ample shelter, and lead such healthy out-door 
lives that they beget a healthy offspring; and to this offspring they give 
the best of food and raiment. For the same reasons rachitis is but little 
seen. 
Syphilis for some reason or other is of a very mild type. The true hard 
or Hunterian chanere is but seldom seen and when it is seen is usually 
imported. Though gonorrhea is abundant and soft chancre not uncommon, 
the Maoris, who suffer much from gonorrhea, very rarely present symptoms 
of syphilis. 
Gout.—A rare disease ; one which will probably be almost or quite un- 
known to young New Zealanders, who in appearance and build show scant 
tendency to the gouty diathesis, and in habits and mode of life do little to 
promote the spread of this most unnecessary malady. "When gout does 
appear it is always in the person of an immigrant. 
Rheumatism in all shapes is the great scourge of the colonist. Whether 
- the wide spread of the disease and its severity is due to climate, or rather to 
the hardships and exposure of the settlers, is a question which can be solved 
only by time and the elimination of those things which specially tend to 
produce it. 
Goitre appears in two mountainous districts. Tabes mesenterica, 
so-called atrophy, and other childish diseases of defective nutrition are - 
comparatively rare, as is shown in the small mortality. 
Dental affections.—The chief feature is the very rapid decay of the teeth, 
a decay which may be called almost universal among the New Zealand 
born. This premature decay is seen in the milk and permanent teeth. 
Its early beginning and its steady progress till all the teeth are affected 
leads to much pain and indigestion through ‘‘ bolted” food. The early 
decay of both sets of teeth is one of the most noteworthy features in New 
Zealand medicine. I am quite convinced that statistics would show an 
amount of disease of the teeth that would startle European physicians, 
