THE SMALL POX.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume VI, Issue 9, 16 May 1859, Page 1

THE SMALL POX.

There is no subject on which the Government of New Zealand has evinced a more anxious solicitude than that of the prevention of Small Pox amongst the Native Race. With that object in view warning after warning has been given, and counsel after counsel offered in the pages.of the "Maori Messenger." The sweeping ravages of that loathsome disease have been described with all the ability which medical skill and zealous humanity could devise, and the sure, unfailing, and easy preventive has been urged to be employed by our Native brethren with the most true and affectionate concern. We need hardly repeat that that certain preventive is Vaccination, and that they who desire to preserve their families from the attack of a disease, which, if once introduced, would carry its wide and deadly effects throughout the aboriginal inhabitants, will lose no lime in availing themselves and of submitting their wives and children to the operation of that saving and blessed vaccination which is so abundantly open to and so solicitously urged upon them. Even they that have been already vaccinated, ff more

than seven years have elapsed, ought to have the operation renewed* because it has been ascertained that persons vaccinated have been visited with small pox, when vaccination, imperfectly performed, had not been repeated. Our reason for again, and urgently, calling the attention of our Native readers lothe vital importance of vaccination, is in consequence of the serious alarm that has been entertained in Melbourne and Svdney Jest the Small Pox should make its way into those cities from the Mauritius, where it has recently Deen raging with fatal virulence. TVith Melbourne and Sydney, the Mauritius carries on a large and continuous intercourse, and, such being the case, the Australian Government are enforcing the most stringent precautions to guard their peoples against the introduction of perhaps the most appalling disease with which humanity can be afflicted. It is with the same earnest desire to preserve the health and lives of our Native fellow men that we revert to the subject of Small Pom, entreating them as they value their own and their children's safetv, not to lose an instant in availing themselves of the easiest and surest safeguard—Vaccination! Let our readers ponder the following harrowing description of the death and desolation which Small Pox scattered amongst the native Indians of America, not more than twenty years since:— "The disease first broke out about the 15th of June, 1857. in the village of Mandans, a ' few miles below the American fort Leavenworth, from which it spread in all directions with unexampled fury. The character of the disease was as appalling as the rapidity of the propagation. Among the remotest tnbes of the Assiniboins from 50 to 100 died daily. The patient, when first seized, com- j plains of dreadful pains in the head and back and in a few hours he is dead; the body in»l mediately turns black, and swells to thric c

iis natural size. In vain were hospitals fitted up in Fort Union, and the whole stock of medicines exhausted. For many weeks together onr workmen did nothing but collect the dead bodies and bury them in large pits; but since the ground is frozen we are obliged to throw them into ihe river. The ravages of the disorder were the most frightful among the Maudans, where it first broke out. That once powerful tribe which, by accumulated disasters, had already been reduced to 1,500 souls, was exterminated, with the exception of thirty persons. Their neighbours, the Big-bellied Indians and the Ricarees, were out on a hunting excursion at the lime of the breaking out o! ihe disorder, so ihat. it did not reac'.i them till a month later; yet half the tribe was already destroyed on the: Ist of October and the disease continued to spread. Very few of those who were attacked recovered their health ; but when they saw all their relations buried and ihe pestilence still raging with unabated fury among the remainder of their countrymen, life became a burden to them, and they put an end to their wretched existence, either with their knives and muskets, or by precipitating themselves from ihe summit of the rock near their settlement. The prairie aH around is a vast field of death, covered with unburied corpses, and spreading for miles pestilence and infection. The Big-bellied Indians and the Ricarees, lately amounting to {,OOO souls, were redu ed to less than the half. The Assiniboins, 9,000 in number, roaming over a hunting territory to the north of the Missouri as far as the trading of the Hudson's Bay Company, are in the literal sense of the expression, nearly exterminated. They, as well as the Crows and Blaekfeet, endeavoured to fly in ail directions, but the disease everywhere pursued them. At last eve.w feeling of mutual compassion and tendenness seems to have disappeared. Every one avoided the others. Women and cildren wandered about the prairie seeking for a scanty subsistence. The accounts of the situation of the Blackfeet are awful. The inmates of above 1000 of their tents are already swept away. They are the bravest and most crafty of all the Indians, dangerous and implacable to their enemies, but faithful and kind to their friends. But very lately we apprehended that a terrible war with them was at hand, and that they would unite the whole of their remaining strength against the whiles. Every day brought accounts of new armaments, and of a loudly expressed spirit of vengeance towards the whites, but the small-pox cast

them down, the brave as well as the feeble, and those who were once seized by this infection never recovered. It is affirmed that several bands of warriors who were on their march to attack the fort, all perished by the way, so that not one survived to convey the intelligence to their tribe. Thus, in the course of a few weeks, their strength and their courage were broken, and nothing was to be heard but the frightful wailings of death in their camp. Every thought of war is dispelled, and the few that are left are as humble as famished dogs. No language can picture the scene of "desolation which the country presents. In whatever direction we go, we see nothing but melancholy wrecks of human life. The tents are still standing on every hill, but no rising smoke announces the presence of human beings, and no sounds but the croaking of the raven and the howling of the wolf interrupt the fearful silence. The above accounts do not complete the terrible intelligence we receive. There is! scarcely a doubt that the pestilence will j spread lo the tribes in and bejond Rocky Mountains, as well as to the Indians in the direction of Santa Fe and Mexico. According to the most recent accounts, the number of Indians who have been swept away by small pox, on the western frontier of the United States, amounts to more than 60,000." "To the civilized classes of society, Small Pox has now almost ceased to be a fatal disease." And the reason is abundantly obvious—because in civilized society, the practice of vaccination is almost universal. Of this grand preservative, we learn "In countries where vaccination is general, the fatality of small-pox hos under its influence declined to some small fraction of that which formerly prevailed : that where formerly, in a given population, there would have occurred one hundred deaths by small pox, there may now occur as few as four or five; and that in this very greatly diminished number annually dying of small-pox the immense majority are unvaccinaied or ill-vac-cinated persons: "Vaccination performed in infancy in the best manner gives lo most persons through

life a complete security against attacks of small-pox: "The vaccinations of Europe are now counted annually by millions. It. may be vain to hope that every lancet shall be used with equal skill anil equal carefulness, or that all populations will be equally anxious to render those operations successful; but medicine at least has contributed her share, In showing that—subject to these conditious —small-pox needs cause no further fear, nor its antidote be accepted with mistrust.' We trust we have said sufficient to arouse the Native mind to the urgent necessity of immediate Vaccination. In Australia, we repeat, great fears prevail lest Snull Pox should steal in, and that the thoughtless and the careless should disregard Vaccination till Small Pox pounce upon its prey. We are no less alarmed; for who can tell how or when Small Pox may creep in amongst ourselves? If it find the Native race prepared, its influence for evil will be small. If it seize upon them as it did upon the red men of America its effects will be no less appalling. Wc implore them therefore to be wise in time. Let the salutary warning go forth among them. And let them all from North to South Vaccinate—Vaccinate—Vaccinate!