Newman. — On Causes leading to the Extinction 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 syphihs 

 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, 

 I am 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 

 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 

 not imported diseases, whilst the children die because they are born weakly; 

 and their chief foes are bad food, irregular clothing, and inherited diseases, 

 and their low, damp habitations ; whilst the imported diseases are not nearly 

 so powerful in their eflects as are these. 



