SMALL-POX QUARANTINE AT SYDNEY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2663, 3 October 1881, Page 2

SMALL-POX QUARANTINE AT SYDNEY.

A late issue of the Auckland “Evening Star” has a strong article on the quarantine arrangements at Sydney, from which we extract the following : When the outbreak of small-pox was discovered by Dr Clone, in the heart of Sydney, the Government and the samtory authorities of that city were

taken completely by surprise. There was an utter absence of the necessary machinery for removing, and arrangements and accommodation for isolating infected persons. Everything had to be done in a hurry, amid the distracting influences of panic. When the disease spread to different quarters of the city there was no medical staff adequate to cope with it, and the Government recklessly engaged a number of men who wore described by Mr Larrant in the General Assembly, as “ regular dipsomaniacs, men who were a disgrace to the medical profession, and were wandering about the city unable to obtain a living by practice.” In the midst of the prevailing alarm, many of the police detailed for the duty of assisting in removing patients, or maintaining a cordon round the infected houses, had no stomach for the business and at the risk of dismissal refused to

obey their superiors. The drains, sewers, and backyards of the city, were in an unhealthy condition, and the Corporation had no efficient system of inspection. No wonder that on the heels o t this confusion and Jack of means,dire results followed. The “Sydney News” thinks that the inscription over the entrance to Inferno, “ all hope abandon ye who enter hero,” might have been appropriately placed on the quarantine flag. Manv of the patients who were released relatoistories of neglect, cruelty ill treatment, and the most outrageous indignities in connection with an indiscriminate exercise of arbitrary law.

Hude, ugly coffins were promiscuously stacked about in sight of the patients. It was even alleged that before the breath was out of their bodies black coffins were placed besides some who were straggling in the throes of death. That some of the sufferers lived to tell the tale is astonishing, in view of the careful preparation s made for their death. For lack of a sufficient supply of clothing, women and children were kept weeks together without a change of linen ; were destitute of shoes, and the rations were not only bad,but insufficient. The publication of these statements has produced precisely the results that might have been expected. Rather than expose their patients to such inhuman treatment, medical men conceal cases of small-pox, trusting to effect a cure by their own skill, and the medical Association of New South Wales has passed a resolution condemning the quarantine system, and expressing a conviction that it has increased the ill effects of the disease..