HORN EXPEDITION-ANTHROPOLOGY. 
127 
Diseases. 
During a recent investigation of the records of the Adelaide ITo.spital, hy the 
writer, from the point of view of the prevalence of liydatid disease in the Austral¬ 
asian colonies, the remarkable fact appeared that no aboriginal admitted as an in¬ 
patient during the last eleven years lias died in the institution from any other cause 
than tuberculosis,* hydatid disease, or accident. The extreme susceptibility of the 
Australian race to tuberculosis, when brought into contact with civili.sation, has 
frequently been observed, but it is difficult to say whether a similar tendency 
exists in their natural condition. When it is remembered that, throughout 
Central Australia, their general practice is to sleep absolutely without covering 
and frequently without shelter of any kind, while subjected to a night tempera¬ 
ture which, in winter, usually falls below freezing point and not unfrequently 
considerably lower, deaths from inflammatory diseases of the chest might be 
expected to form a heavy percentage of the total mortality. On the other hand, 
there was no obvious evidence that such was the case, and there is a good deal to 
be said in favour of the view that the great tendency to lung complaints, oliserved 
in the natives who have come under the influence of civilisation, arises from the 
fact that they alternate periods of being well clad, sheltered and fed with those in 
which they revert to the conditions of complete or semi-nudity, exposure and hard 
living peculiar to their natural or wild life. 
Those who are impressed, either by actual experience or by the accounts of 
travellers, with the torrid heat of the Australian summer, will scarcely realise the 
extreme winter cold of the interior, particularly of the high lands of the central 
region.s. To us who, warmly clad as we were, felt the cold of the nights severely, 
it was surprising how, stark naked, with no shelter and lying on the bare ground, 
at a temperature which not unfrequently fell below f20° F., the natives could 
endure the exposure without harm. Fires they certainly had, but they were com¬ 
paratively small, and that they felt the cold acutely was evident from their restless 
movements, sleepless nights, and their endeavours to impart mutual warmth by 
contact of their bodies. Fortunately there was a very general absence of wind 
during the nights, or the cold would have been still more severely felt. 
Venereal diseases are extremely rife amongst the natives, undoubtedly largely 
owing to infection by the whites. In a few instances I observed the character- 
* My colleague, Professor Watson, informs me that in the natives who have died in the hospital the invariahlc 
seat of commencing tuherculosis is the lymphatic glands, which condition runs on to general disseminated 
tubercle. In no ease, out of a considerable number of autopsies, has he seen cavitation of the lungs. 
t On more than one occasion the minimum nocturnal temperature fell to IC" F. 
