No. 2.
A REPORT on the DISEASES of Perth, Western Australia from 1st Jan, to 31st Dec. 1831.
The prevalent diseases this year were similar to those of the last, viz. Dysentery, Opthalmia, Fever, and Scurvy.
Dysentery.—There were fewer cases of this disease than in 1830. They were of the same mild character as described in my last report. As the causes, symptoms, and treatment, are there detailed, it is unnecessary to repeat them. All the cases have terminated favourably.
Opthalmia.— Neither was this disease so general as during the preceding year. Those who escaped it in 1830 were now generally attacked. It was of the sub-acute, purulent character, already described; no unfavourable termination has taken place. The Aborigines are liable to this disease, but I have not seen any amongst them, whose vision was permanently injured by it.
Fever—has been also on the decline, and the symptoms of a milder character. It appears to have been brought on by malaria, wet and cold, fatigue, or intemperance; or perhaps, in some instances, all these causes conjoined; there are no proofs of its being of a contagious nature; on the contrary, it has seldom occurred to two persons residing in the same house. In that portion of the town of Per&, called the Bazaar, where some bad cases occurred the last year, there has not been one this, which may be accounted for by the improvements which have taken place in that neighbourhood—the clearing, the draining, and the erection of good houses. It was mentioned in my last report, that some ships arrived here at the commencement of the settlement, with typhus fever on board, and that it was possible the fever might have been introduced in that way. I am now inclined to doubt, whether any euch disease can exist here under the ordinary circumstances of the atmosphere; no case of measles, small pox, scarlatina, or other contagious disease.
