The history of small-pox in Australia, 1788-1908 / compiled from various sources by J.H.L. Cumpston.

  • Cumpston, J. H. L. (John Howard Lidgett), 1880-1954.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of small-pox in Australia, 1788-1908 / compiled from various sources by J.H.L. Cumpston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    All these circumstances being considered together, it becomes clear that the contagium showed very little activity, and that almost all the cases must have been due to contact either with the sick themselves or with tomites; at all events, its aerial diffusion was SO slight as to he negligible. And, as a matter of recorded observation, of 103 eases which happened after 2nd September, when note of the source of infection first began to be taken, 70 per cent, were found to have been infected either by contact with the sick, or by fomites, or by close contiguity of the sick in an adjoining house—a large proportion to be thus traced in a crowded city. Lastly, although communication was easy and remained uninterrupted, there was no spread of the disease to other cities or to the country districts. While these remarks were made by Dr. Thompson only in connexion with the epidemic of 1881-2, yet they are equally true of the later epidemics. The fact that immediate personal contact had occurred in practically every case in which the details are recorded in 1881-5 outbreak, brings into pro- minence this apparent necessity for personal contact before infection can occur, and it would appear to be almost justifiable to question whether infection had occurred in these outbreaks in the absence of direct personal contact. Particularly is this feature produced in the later occasion of the introduction of small-pox by steamers in 1892 and 1901. In these years vessels arrived in Sydney with the infection on board, and this infection of small-pox was for one or another reason enabled to attack the resident population of Sydney, but in no single instance was the range of active infection greater than the immediate neighbourhood of foci of infection directly from the ship.