SMALL POX.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 1, 4 January 1849, Page 4

SMALL POX.

Letter to the Natives of New Zealand. My Friends, —There prevaits in almost every country in the world a fatal and disgusting sickness called Small Pox. The Governor has been afraid for some lime that this disease would break oul among you, and he has therefore come to the determination to endeavour to prevent such a misfortune taking place in New Zealand. I To make you aware of the danger you are in from small pox, and the necessity there exists for what he is about to do, the Governor has instructed me lo write this letter to you ; in which you will learn where small pox first appeared ; how it spread over llie w.irld ; and also about the remedy which the Governor is to introduce, so as to protect you and your chilJren from small pox. Let 111 c first tell you how the disease .attacks a person. Description of a Person Sick tvith Small Pox.—For two or three days, the person who is about to have the small pox has severe pain in tlie back and the head, the mind wanders, he is sick and vomits, the skin is hot. On the second or third day of this illness a n r cat number of small red points nppear; first on the face and wrists, then on the neck, body, amis, and legs; sometimes 011 the inside or the mouth and nose. 111 three days those red points grow larger, anil become about this size ®. The swellings nre now filled wilh something like water, and they have a small depression in llicir centres.

On the sixth day from the appearance of the eruption, the swellings are at their greatest size, nml the watery fluid in them becomes of n yellow colour. On the seventh day they burst, and discharge a nasty matter. In aboi)t twelve days more the discharge from the swellings stop, the swellings become Wry, and llie scibs fall oil', leaving ujly marks on the skin, which marks never disappear. These marks are almost always most numerous and more ugly on the face than on any other part of the body. . Sonic-times there are only a few hundred of these spots on the budy, but generally there aro many thousands; so that a person ill with small pox, on the -filth day of the eruption, can often neither see out of his eyes, speak with his tongue, or lake food into his mouth ; and SO swollen is the face, that a father can with difficulty know his own child, nor a wife her husband. The sores are so painful, tint a sick person c.innol sleep ; and as the sores are over the whole body, lie cannot either stand or lie down in any posture without pain. 'lho discharge from the sores is so disgusting, that it is only the kindest friends that can be brought to attend a person ill with small pox ; and to convince you of this, I regret to toll you, that a wife has been known to run nway f<"-'ii her husband, and a mother from her child, during tile sickness from small pox. If you go near, or touch a person ill with small pox, you aro in grejit danger of taking iUb disease, and by this menus it lins spread among men. After you have Imd small pox once, you very seldom have the disease again, even if you touch or attend on a person ill willi the disease. Out of every four persons who are attacked with small pox, and have no medical treatment, one dies; and many who recover have the beauty of the face destroyed for ever; and in bad cases the sight of one or both eyes is lost, and the ear is rendered deaf. But you nviy say, where is the danger of this disease coming among us ? This I will next tell you. (To be continued.)