AUSTRALIAN BLACKS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1919, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN BLACKS

RAVAGED BY DISEASE. SYDNEY, December 10. Dr Basedow, who has returned to Adelaide after four months spent in Central Australia conducting a “medical reconnaissance’’ among the aborigines reports an appalling condition of affairs. .Soutli Australia, for the purposes oi\ this medical inspection, has heen split' into four sections, Dr Basedow has just concluded' a tour of the remote north-east—the area lying between the borders of Queensland, New 'South Wales and the Northern Territory. In the early eighties it was officially reported that the blacks were increasing (so rapidly that they threatened to become a menace to the white population .

“That is far from being the case today,” Dr Basedow.“ There has been a, serious diminution in their numbers through the deadly ravages of. Vyseaise, venereal a,nd tubercular. I had never heen in this country before, but the position of the aborigines is far worse than I had expected. I saw only one piccaninny on the Innaminoka side, and it died when it was three weeks old.’ These! tribes are simply overrup with syphilis, causing sterility among the males and premature births among the women. I treated a large number on the spot, and left them supplies °f medicine, hut I am afraid it is too late—the trouble is so extensive. It was marvellous how the news travelled that I was in the country. Tt went by ‘mul'ga wire,’ as they say in these parts—for the natives have their own system of wireless telegraphy.” The doctor described many strange and interesting things he had seen in this terra incognita but his chief impression was of the drought, ihis great region is gasping for water; in there is the worst drought known to the white people. The cattle and sheep on the station which border this uninviting land are dying in thousands. Dr Basedow, at one place heard the uncanny booming noise often referred to by early explorers. It is like a succession of deep blasts. The 'doctor attributed it io atmospheric conditions, the. result of the extreme dryness.