Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/157

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SMALL POX. THE FRENCH, l^^ His l)ehaiour gave good reason for forming a more ofthis country than has been drawn from from restraint, favourable opiiiion of the people the report niiide by those who formerly touched on this coast." While Arabanoo was alive ainall-pox was raging amongst his countrymen, and from motives of humanity two suffer- had been introduced by the crews of the French ships then in Botany Bav; since that period no veatige of the disease has ever appeared," fiarly coloiiistB saw in the interior old men apparently marked with the strange diaeasc whose introduction was attributed to the French. The t natives concurred in declaring that only at that epoch were its ravages heard of amongst the tribes^ and none but the aged bore traces of it in 18^i5. Some iiKiuirers have thought otherwise, but the proofs on which they relied have been resolved into instances of a disease known as native poek which sonietimei* produced severe pustules. In 1831 there was an outcry in the Btilhurat district against the Ck)vemnient for allowing the BettlerR^ lives to Ife endangered by the " Buialbpox:" alleged to be raging among the aborigines. On examination by medioul men it waa- loimd that native pock^ of more impressive ehanfccter than usual, had be^n mistaken for the dreaded disease. |189i». In the "History- of Xow South Wales from the Records," the I editor discredits the idea that the French introduced smallpox in 1788, He Ba^a *' the testimonj^ of the early settlers and the natives thus allegetl (by Ruaden) amounts to nothing more than tradition, and is not entitled to any weight unless it can be cunaectcd with ascertained facts. " But the editor nusses the important point that the authority of Thomas Jamison, the principal surgeon in IS04, whose serious statement was quoted from the Gazette^ was nuiuipeachable, and was that of an expert. He accompanied (Phillip in the Sirius from England as surgeon's first mate in 1787. He became assistant Burc;eon during Phillip's rule. He knew the ^* medical gentlemen" whose opinion he cited ; and he was himself principal surgeon when he published it. If such testimony can Ije bruslied aside aa *' not entitled to any weight," it is difficult to imagine how any testimony can be accepted as trustworthy, fiovernor PhiWip, writing in Feb. IT^Ji after the capture of Beuniloug, said : ** Whether the smallpox was brought by the French ship-s, we have not yet attained sntficient knowledge of the language to determine." [Ninety years after the publication of the determination, (it is rather late to diapiile it. Air. Barton, in an appendix I La Perouse at Botany Bay), accumulates a nmuber of sta.tements made by Tench and otherSf but thej^ are all dated before the arrival of the time when exhaustive conversation with Bennilong could enable the coIoniBts to form a correct judgment as to the facts. The reference to Sir T. Mitchell's aeeing natives 8u tiering from an eruption in LS31 near the Liverpool Range, iis pointless. It was in that yctir that medical men (as referred to in the foregoing note of 1883} ascertained that the fears t>f the dwellers beyond the Dividing Range (of which the Liverpool Range is a part) were ^^ groundless, and that the affection of the natives was merely the native ^Kpock.j Some time, of course, elapsed befoi^ conversation with Bennilong ^Bbould be free and inatroctive. He was captured in Nov, 17^9 ; he escaped ^^mfter a few months, and only took up his abode in Sydney permanently m ^HNov. I7fHX None of Tench's observations extended beyond 17iH, and IP^ allowing considerable intelligence to Benuiloug^ it must be atbuitted that the *' medical gentlemen" could not expect to '* dettirmiwe, VVffiX^fe hra&e, before l/^i?, with rv^rd to the introduction oi 6maW-T0ox.