THE SMALLPOX SCARE.

Mataura Ensign, 26 September 1913, Page 5

THE SMALLPOX SCARE.

VACCINATION BILL. BT ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH _ DOI'TRU HT. PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. Received' September 26, 9.30 a.m l . SYDNEY, Sept. 26. Ia the Legislative Assembly the Vaccination Bill was read a first time. It ■provides for the vaccination of children before they reach the age of one year, the lltli year, or the 21st year. A conscience clause is provided./ The Board of Health is empowered to isolate an infected area. The decentralisation motion was withdrawn.

NO CASES IN QUEENSLAND. Received September 26, 10.50 a.m. BRISBANE, Sept. 26. The girl who was quarantined has been discharged, the case not being smallpox. The Ipswich case is also not smallpox. There are no suspicious cases in Queensland.

CORRECTED DIACNOSIS. ADELAIDE, Sept. 25. The case of illness at Kent Town has Wen declared not to be 'smallpox. POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND. EFFICACY OFTACCIXATLON. PER UNITED PBESS ASSOCIATION, AUCKLAND, Sept. 25. "If there is another smallpox epidemic in the North it will be the Europeans and not the Maoris who will suffer," declared Dr Te Rangihiroa, member of Parliament for the Northern Maori electorate, who has just returned from medical work in the Kaikohe district. "The Maoris have rushed to bo vaccinated because they observed the immunity of vaccinated persons. In no case has a person who had been successfull vaccinated contracted the disease, and had there been a fair proportion of vaccinated persons there would not have been nearly such a severe epidemic. There have been 700 or 800 cases of smallpox in the district and about 20 deaths. In some of the worst parts half the population was affected, but the epidemic is now well under, and in 22 villages tliere have been no fresh cases for over three weeks. Tliere have been fresh, cases in only three places, and plactically all the old patients have been given a clean bill of health." Dr Te Rangihiroa, pays a warm tribute to the excellent work done by the four iifth-year medical students from the Otago Medical School who assisted him—Messrs Haslett, Tapper, Watt and Myers. Farther north, Messrs Cameron, Serpell, and Farvin havo done equally valuable work, 'llio sanitary inspectors and several honorary native sub-inspectors havo also* been of great service, and the district has been thoroughly cleaned up. A strict watch is still being kept for sporadic cases. Dr Te Rangihiroa is going on to \Yel-lino-ton, and he docs not anticipate that it will be necessary for him to revisit The city and suburbs of Auckland remain free from any further cases Reports received from Huntly yesterday stated) that a Maori suffering from the disease was in hiding, and subsequently it "was announced that he had been discovered in a pa near the Cawkwell has gone to Kawliia to make inquiries concerning certain reports that have ooiae to hand.

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