Small-pox epidemic in New South Wales, 1913 / by D.G. Robertson.

  • Robertson, D. G.
Date:
[1914?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Small-pox epidemic in New South Wales, 1913 / by D.G. Robertson. 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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    SMALL-POX EPIDEMIC. NEW SOUTH WALES, 1913-14. By D. G. Robertson, M.D., D.P.H., Chief Quarantine Officer for Victoria. The following notes deal with the type of variola consistently met with throughout the course of an extensive epidemic which began in Sydney, New South Wales, in May, 1913, and still continues. The disease was introduced probably from the United States of America, and it will be shown that the type of disease hereafter described is identical with that prevalent in North America at the present time, accounts of which are given by Herman Spalding, Chicago, and Hodgetts, Ontario. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT TYPE OF DISEASE. The disease is said to have been introduced in 1897 into the southern part of the United States of America from Cuba, during the time of the Spanish-Cuban War. From the south this form of small-pox gradually b?came disseminated throughout most States, and was introduced into Essex County, Canada, from the adjoining State of Michigan in 1899. The disease spread into most of the provinces of Canada, and is there in epidemic form at the present time. In both the United States of America and Canada great diversity of opinion existed as regards diagnosis when the disease first made its appearance. Chicken-pox, giant chicken-pox, impetigo contagiosum, Cuban itch, cutaneous disease of a new type, were terms applied to it in diagnosis, and in numerous instances it existed for some considerable, time before the exact nature was recognised. Epidemics of a similar nature have from time to time been described. Jenner in 1798 drew atteution to a species of small-pox which seven years before spread through many of the towns and villages of Gloucester- shire. He states it was of so mild a nature that fatal results were rarely heard of, and that he never saw or heard of an instance of its being confluent. There is not sufficient data, however, to decide whether this epidemic was similar to the variety of small-pox now occurring in New South Wales, or merely a mild form of the more familiar type of the disease.