35 



estimated — it falls below that of English epidemics/ 14 ) whereas 

 one would have expected that the mortality rate of a people 

 affected for the first time by a severe zymotic disease, and in 

 whom there could have been no acquired immunity, would 

 be very high.( 15 ) 



2. In Collins' account of the Sydney epidemic it was 

 stated that "its baneful effects were not experienced by any 

 white person of the settlement, though there were several 

 very young children in it at the time." And again in the 

 same work (chap, viii., p. 597) he says "notwithstanding the 

 town of Sydney was at this time filled with children, many 

 of whom visited the natives that were ill of this disorder, 

 not one of them caught it." Curr (3) and Bennett (15), in 

 their notices of various outbreaks, also frequently allude to 

 the fact that children either did not take the disease or were 

 affected by it less severely than adults. Now, among the 

 European races, young children are more liable to small-pox 

 than older persons, and, moreover, the mortality from small- 

 pox is greatest in the first years of life (see footnote ( 14 )). 

 In fact, in prevaccination days small-pox was regarded as a 

 "disease of childhood, just as whooping-cough and measles 

 were and are." (16) 



3. White adults seem to have enjoyed a similar immunity y 

 as will appear from special mention of this circumstance by 

 those writers quoted in the case of the exemption of children,, 

 and this notwithstanding the fact that no special precautions 

 seem to have been taken to avoid communciation with the 

 affected blacks. 



In spite, however, of these abnormalities in the inci- 

 dence and effects of the disease we s'hall, I think, still come 



(14) Mair's rates of mortality, reduced to percentages, lie 

 between 33 and 17 per cent, inclusive. In "The System of 

 Medicine," by Allbutt and Bolleston [vol. II., pt. 1 (1906), p. 

 783], a table of mortality of unvaccinated persons of all ages 

 is given as ranging from 66 per cent, in children up to two 

 years old, down to 23 per cent, for the ages ten to fifteen, and 

 rising again to rates varying from 40 to 50 per cent, for inter- 

 vening ages. 



(15) Catlin (16, II., 24), in speaking of the ravages of small- 

 pox among the North American Indians in 1832 — about the 

 same date as the Bathurst outbreak, it will be noticed — states 

 that the Pawnees lost 50 per cent., or more, of their number and 

 that many other tribes were also greatly reduced. In the 

 great epidemic ot measles, a much less fatal disease among 

 whites than small-pox, in Fiji in 1875 it is estimated that one- 

 third of the native population of the islands perished (17, I., 56). 



(16) Although the exact proportion cannot yet be given it is 

 evident that the Swanport remains contain a considerable 

 number of young children. 



b2 



