33 



from the north, or even from the south, where we have evi- 

 dence of its presence at an early date. As Mitchell reports 

 it to have been prevalent all along the Darling it might well 

 have reached the centre from this direction, though a 

 northern derivation is, perhaps, equally probable, as there 

 is a succession of contiguous tribes all the way from Port 

 Darwin to the MacDonnell Ranges, and no physical obstacles 

 stand in the way of its transmission.' 12 ) 



The Nature of the Disease. 



So far we have, without argument, assumed that the 

 disease the origin and spread of which we have endeavoured 

 to trace was small-pox, and though the inquiry into its true 

 nature is essentially a medical question, it is necessary to 

 give it some consideration here. 



It will have been noticed in what has preceded that 

 the disease was considered to be small-pox by all those wit- 

 nesses of the first outbreak in Sydney who have mentioned 

 it, though I can find no direct medical pronouncements to 

 that effect, save such as have been stated. 



In nearly all of the later epidemics occurring in New 

 South Wales, Victoria, or South Australia it was either 

 definitely called small-pox or spoken of as a disease exactly 

 like it ; and the various eruptive and other symptoms that 

 were described, sometimes by medical men, when associated 

 with its severity, contagiousness, and mortality certainly 

 correspond with those of small-pox and to no other known 

 disease. 



The outbreak at Bathurst and in its neighbourhood 

 which has been mentioned as occurring in 1830-1 excited so 

 much attention that Dr. Mair, Assistant Surgeon of the 

 39th Regiment, was sent from Sydney to investigate it. 

 Unfortunately he arrived too late to be an actual witness 

 of the disease in progress, but he made inquiries on the 

 spot and embodied his results in a report to his Govern- 

 ment. I have not been able to refer directly to the full 

 text of this report, as no copy of it exists either in the 

 Public or Parliamentary Libraries of this State : but Ben- 

 nett, when discussing this part of the subject at some 

 length (15, L, 148) gives Dr. Mair's own synopsis, which 

 may be advantageously quoted here as summarizing his con- 

 clusions : — 



(12) Spencer and Gillen have pointed out (29, 20) that the line 

 of transmission, as represented by the handing on of oorroborees 

 from tribe to tribe and of certain other changes in tribal practices, 

 has always been from north to south and never vice versa. 



