Newman.—On Causes leading to the Eatinction of the Maori. 469 
results are rarely severe. My own feeling (remembering the frightful 
scourge it proved on its introduction to various parts of Europe) is one of 
astonishment at the smallness of the evil. Several doctors who practise 
largely among the Maoris assure me that they never saw true syphilis 
in a Maori. My own experience is that amongst the large number of 
Maoris I have seen I have not been able to detect any evils from this cause, 
yet I am quite sure that in any like number of low-living whites the 
evidences would be abundant. I have never seen Maori children with any 
marks of syphilis. Though I have searched everywhere and have tried to 
seek confirmatory evidence of the reports of the frightful ravages of syphilis, 
Iam forced to the conclusion that they are unfounded, and that syphilis 
has been a very unimportant one among the many factors leading to 
the decrease of the Maoris. 
On the other hand, I readily admit the influence of a milder form of lues 
venerea. The prevalence of this disease is so great as really to merit the 
term universal. It is probable that it existed mildly before we whites came 
here, and that we imported a severe variety of it. The prevalence of this 
disease in both sexes leads to sterility, by causing the inflammation of the 
Secretory passages of both races, and especially probably in women, as is 
Seen in a particular class of women in London, where the extension of this 
inflammation to the Fallopian ducts leads to their occlusion and a consequent 
sterility. It is my belief that this variety of disease will account for some 
of the barrenness existing among the women. 
Leprosy, formerly common among the Maoris, has now almost dis- 
appeared, under the constant supply of nutritious food. 
_ Looking then at the question as a whole, I am inclined to think that 
imported diseases have not been the chief causes leading to the disappear- 
ance of the Maori, but that they have only played a part with others. I 
think that other causes are more effective; in fact, with a few exceptions of 
: two or three rather severe epidemics, and one frightfully severe, as men- 
tioned by Colenso, that occurred many years ago, there is no evidence to 
show that, provided other causes did not exist, there would be sufficient 
_ PoWer in these diseases to kill the race. Did such new diseases (we will 
a Suppose imbibed by us from the aborigines) attack us, our natural increase 
_ Of population would soon repair their ravages in our ranks. As a matter of 
fact, the Maoris die chiefly from such diseases as phthisis, in all its protean 
forms, from bronchitis and pneumonia, and from renal affections, which are 
i they are born weakly; 
Rot imn ee ny pee Thildren die bh 
