26 



It is to be noticed that, in addition to overcrowding, the 

 conditions under which the convicts made their voyage were 

 evidently very insanitary, for we are told that the Surgeon- 

 General proposed white-washing, with quicklime, those parts 

 of the ships where the convicts were confined, as a means for 

 correcting and preventing the "unwholesome dampness which 

 usually appeared on the beams and sides of the ships, and 

 was occasioned by the breath of the people." Here are, at 

 all events, favourable conditions for the development and 

 spread of disease. 



Whatever may have been the exact nature of the 'malig- 

 nant disease" of the unnamed Portsmouth doctor there is 

 other evidence to show that all was not quite right at the 

 start from a health point of view, for Tench (H ; 1), in speak- 

 ing of the long stay of the ships at the Motherbank, says: — 

 "In this period, except a slight appearance of contagion in 

 one of the transports, the ships were universally healthy and 

 the prisoners in good spirits." Note here, again, the dom- 

 inant idea of contagion. Now, while a certain amount of 

 difference of opinion between doctors is unfortunately not 

 unusual, at the present time of improved medical know- 

 ledge, one is scarcely prepared to find, even in those days, so 

 great a divergence as appears to have existed in this case. 

 Between a disease, thought to be characterized by malignity, 

 and the effects of cold, aggravated by malnutrition, close 

 confinement, and insanitary conditions generally is a wide 

 gulf, and it is impossible to avoid suspicion that the Ports- 

 mouth doctor, whose reiterated opinion the official medical 

 officer treated with so much contumely, may have been right 

 after all. Such a suspicion is strengthened by a significant 

 remark made by Tench (9, 18), who sailed with the expedition 

 as captain of marines. He is endeavouring to discover the 

 origin of the Sydney outbreak, which he assumes to be small- 

 pox, and, in a footnote, he mentions that "no person among 

 us had been afflicted with the disorder since we had quitted 

 the Cape of Good Hope, seventeen months before." Surely 

 this may be read as equivalent to an admission that the dis- 

 ease had existed in the previous part of the voyage.^ If this 

 was so it is curious that the principal medical officer (Surgeon- 

 General White) makes no mention of such an occurrence in his 

 account of the voyage, though he alludes to an outbreak of 

 mumps soon after sailing and, later, of dysentery, from which 

 one man died. 



It must thus be admitted that strong suspicion attaches to 

 the English expedition as a potential source of some disorder 



(9) The fleet arrived at Table Bay on October 13, 1787, and 

 left on November 13. It arrived at Botany Bav on January 20, 

 1788. * 



