the gradual extinction of savage nations when in contact with Europeans, inclines to. the opinion that their extinction is a necessity, a mystery which we cannot fathom:[1]—
"It is a singular fact (says he) recorded by the missionaries, that disease has followed their steps in most of the islands which they have visited, even when no such personal intercourse has taken place, as would afford an explanation on the ordinary principles of medical science. A similar observation applies to New Zealand, where the people appear to have laboured under sickness of a kind hitherto unknown. A professional gentleman whose services were required at the station of Kaitai, writes as follows:—'I regret to state, that there has been more disease amongst them during this period than has ever been observed at any previous period of their history. Its nature also[2] appears to be quite new, and such as they appear never to have suffered from before. It has in many of its features resembled the influenza prevailing of late years in England, which brought with it so much mortality, and this in like manner has been very destructive.' In allusion to another ailment, the same writer observes, that the epidemic from which they have been more recently suffering, has been more general, and of much more serious results."
This seems to have been of an erisipelatous nature.
- ↑ These extracts from this work are copied from a Sydney paper.
- ↑ This statement goes to contradict the supposition that the natives had suffered under this epidemic previous to the arrival of Europeans; but this is one of those subjects on which it is difficult to obtain information amongst savage nations. How few, even in England, know how often the influenza had visited England previous to 1831, or that it had appeared there at five distinct' intervals in the eighteenth century, and once since the commencement of the nineteenth, namely, in 1803?
