464 
NEW SOUTH WALES 
CHAP. 
or some other disease which carries off numbers of the people.” 
Again he affirms, “ It is certainly a fact, which cannot be 
controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged in the 
islands during my residence there, have been introduced by 
ships ; 1 and what renders this fact remarkable is, that there 
might be no appearance of disease among the crew of the ship 
which conveyed this destructive importation.” This statement 
is not quite so extraordinary as it at first appears ; for several 
cases are on record of the most malignant fevers having broken 
out, although the parties themselves, who were the cause, were 
not affected. In the early part of the reign of George III, a 
prisoner who had been confined in a dungeon was taken in a 
coach with four constables before a magistrate ; and, although 
the man himself was not ill, the four constables died from a 
short putrid fever ; but the contagion extended to no others. 
From these facts it would almost appear as if the effluvium of one 
set of men shut up for some time together was poisonous when 
inhaled by others ; and possibly more so, if the men be of 
different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears to be, it 
is not more surprising than that the body of one’s fellow-creature, 
directly after death, and before putrefaction has commenced, 
should often be of so deleterious a quality that the mere 
puncture from an instrument used in its dissection should 
prove fatal. 
17 th .—Early in the morning we passed the Nepean in a 
1 Captain Beechey (chap. iv. vol. i.) states that the inhabitants of Pitcairn 
Island are firmly convinced that after the arrival of every ship they suffer cutaneous 
and other disorders. Captain Beechey attributes this to the change of diet during 
the time of the visit. Dr. Macculloch [Western Isles, vol. ii. p. 32) says, “It is 
asserted, that on the arrival of a stranger (at St. Ivilda) all the inhabitants, in the 
common phraseology, catch a cold. ” Dr. Macculloch considers the whole case, 
although often previously affirmed, as ludicrous. He adds, however, that “the 
question was put by us to the inhabitants who unanimously agreed in the story.” 
In Vancouver’s Voyage there is a somewhat similar statement with respect to 
Otaheite. Dr. Dieffenbach, in a note to his translation of this Journal, states that 
the same fact is universally believed by the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, and 
in parts of New Zealand. It is impossible that such a belief should have become 
universal in the northern hemisphere, at the Antipodes, and in the Pacific, without 
some good foundation. Humboldt ( Polit . Essay on King, of New Spain, vol. iv.) 
says that the great epidemics at Panama and Callao are “marked” by the arrival of 
ships from Chile, because the people from that temperate region first experience the 
fatal effects of the torrid zones. I may add, that I have heard it stated in Shropshire 
that sheep, which have been imported from vessels, although themselves in a healthy 
condition, if placed in the same fold with others, frequently produce sickness in the 
flock. 
