VACCINATION ON IMMIGRANT VESSELS.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1393, 29 July 1874, Page 2

VACCINATION ON IMMIGRANT VESSELS.

. To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir, —Permit me through the columns of your widely spread paper to give publicity to the following factd. 'Tis through no feeling or spirit of revenge, for in my dealings with Dr Warren on board the James Wisharfc I have little to complain of except hi 3 excluding me from visiting my family for six weeks—my wife being matron, and five daughters located aft with the single girls. Yeb, sir, when sickness set in on leaving England, the singlo girls' constable was sick, and the doctor do., and steward away fordays, 1 took the place of the constable and acted the nurse and Samaritan for them. This is not the subject I wish, however, to enter on. I was delayed in England three or four months after Mr Featherston had appointed a vessel for me to sail in, — one reason I had to wait for War Office authority, to resign my office in the Central Department, and my wife's confinement. My child waa greatly admired in England, indeed on board ship also ; and Mrs Warren was heard by more than one person to say that her Willj' ought to be an emigrant's child, and mine the doctor's. For want of nourishment my wife could suckle the child but a little. It was therefore placed exclusively on the sucking bottle, and fell away very much. It afterwards got the thrush, which still more reduced it, but again it began to rally, when the doctor sent Mrs H. to bring her child to him for v^iccinition. She did not comply, on which he sent a peremptory message ordering her to bring the child immediately, in an evil moment she complied, and my fine child waa vaccinated in four places. About next morning I heard what was done, and went to Doctor Warren and told him how sorry I was to hear that my wife allowed hitri to vaccinate the child in the weakly state it was then in ; that this would be the last of my child. He said, "No, no, Mr Hardinge, believe me your child will be all right; you need have no apprehension of the kind, the child will be all right, you'll see " " Well," I answered, "if all is right so much the better, but I believe this will finish its career in this world. I upbraided my wife for letting this be done without my knowledge, and repeated similar words to her that I did to the doctor. Well, sir, all went tolerably well, the pock rose, and was dying off when the child broke out in sores, the right ear running matter, under her arm, the back and head which is so frequently the case after vaccination, the Almighty leaving this door of escape open, casting; the disease outwards and purifying the blood. This clever doctor, William Warren, prescribed an ointment of all others that carried death with it "oxide of zinc." This waa the finishing touch. The disease was driven inwards, the blood poisoned, and as my poor baby Bat on her sister's knees looking at the light of a candle. She gave three short hic-ups, and lives no more. Is this a visitation of the Almighty, or the careless, unskilful reckless doings of Dr. Warren. It could not be wilful, yet it has sent, my child to that, bourne from whence no traveller returns. He vaccinated my fine and beautiful looking child on the 15th May, and sent it into the fearful depths of the mighty Pacific on the 22nd June, 1874. Eequiescat in pace.—l am, &c, Frederick Hardinge.