THE NELSON EXAMINEE. "Wednesday, April 16, 1862.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 32, 16 April 1862, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINEE. "Wednesday, April 16, 1862.

Journali become more neceimy as men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they torve only to secure liberty; tney maintain cmlication. Ds TocaocyiLLß. Of Democracy in America, toI. y., 330. Pleuro-pneumonia is now devastating the cattle districts of Australia and, if we may judge from a proclamation published in the New Zealand Gazette of March 7, our G-o-vernment is alive to the necessity of adopting every precaution to prevent its spread in this colony. Hitherto the colonists of Australia and New Zealand have trusted to their remote and insular position for exemption from contagious diseases, whether affecting man or beast, and are suddenly awakened, by the presence amongst us of an epidemic upon cattle, to the fact that steam communication has, and is likely still more to alter our relations with continental countries. The calamity which has fallen so heavily upon our neighbours in Australia will not, however, be an unmixed evil, if it warns us to take every precaution against the introduction of analogous epidemics amongst the human species. Some of the epidemics which have from time to time devastated whole nations, cholera for instance, are so subtle in their nature that the laws which regulate their development and progress have not yet been discovered, and we can only set our house in order by the adoption of general sanitary precautions and await their coming ; others, which, from the circumstance of one of their prominent features being an eruption or rash on the surface of the body, have been called exanthemata by physicians, are influenced by well-known laws, and it is only by neglect of the precautions suggested by a knowledge of these laws that one of the most formidable of them, small-pox, from

f which we have hitherto been exempt, can apj pear among us. fc Small-pox, a disease unknown to the 5 younger generation of colonists, and almost ; forgotten by those who have been here for 3 many years, is, in common with the other . exanthemata, contagious, or, in general terms, > communicable from person to person, but differs from typhoid fever, of which the Prince > Consort died, in never originating, as the latter probably does, from the inhalation or • absorption of putrid emanations. How small- [ pox originated we do not know ; it ia an his- , torical fact that it was known in China 1,000 years before the Christian Era ; that it grai dually made its way westward (like cholera in J later times) towards Arabia, where it ap1 peared as an epidemic at the siege of Mecca ' in the sixth century, and was carried into t Europe, through Spain, by the Moors. In » 1,520 it was introduced into America, and, l according to Robertson, carried off 3,500,000 people, thus manifesting a disposition to > spread in, and visit with great severity, those 3 countries in which for the first time it makes \ its appearance. The circumstance that it 3 and that mysterious visitor cholera have hitherto travelled in a westerly direction is . not without significance in pointing to j Panama and the intermediate islands as the t direction whence it may come to us. Hitherto ' Australia has been regarded as a kind of i barrier between New Zealand and Ceylon, the I nearest country in which the disease prevails. i The warning ■ given by the introduction of ' pleuro-pneumonia in that direction, and the ' probability of dhrect communication with J Panama in another, cannot but suggest to any reflecting mind the question, how is this 3 colony to preserve the exemption which it I has hitherto enjoyed from small-pox ? I Two methods of dealing with the question I present themselves, Ist an efficient quaranf tine ; 2nd universal vaccination as a means of preventing its spread, should it by any chance be introduced In the New Zealand P Gazette, of February 15, certain quarantine i regulations are notified as having been added [ to those already in existence tending to s render quarantine less a matter of form than 1 it has hitherto been, and we have now to , consider whether the quarantine now estab1 lished which will be effectual against the in- , troduction of the disease by diggers from • Australia and California, or by the Panama I line when it is opened, or whether universal vaccination, as practiced in England, should be adopted in this colony. Here a novel question presents itself, the answer to which throws a grave responsibility on the members of the medical profession, practicing in Australia and !New Zealand, from the fact that they do not share it with their professional brethren in England. Now , and then it happens that certain other diseases are introduced contemporaneously with the vaccine matter into the system, a remarkable instance of which is described in the Lancet of November 16, and a similar case has occurred in this colony. These, however, are only accidental circumstances, not affecting general results ; but, from the days of Jenner to the present time, the question has been mooted, whether, in producing that wonderful change in the human constitution which for a time if not for life renders it incapable of being affected by the poison of small-pox, we do not work some other change pernicious in its character, for aught we know to the contrary. In continental countries, where the greater evil is constantly present, the question of the infliction of a lesser to avert it, may be practically disregarded. Under the circumstances of this colony, however, the case is altered, and offers matter for grave consideration. One argument presents itself in favour of universal vaccination, namely, that the unprotected, on leaving these colonies for continental countries, will be liable to take the disease. Here, however, we are met by another difficulty, as the .opinion is now gaining ground that the protecting influence of vaccination gradually wears out, and that those who have been vaccinated in infancy are not to be considered as exempt from small-pox unless re-vaccinated when adults. The sanitary questions of pure water and efficient drainage having lately been discussed in the Examiner, these facts, bearing upon the allied questions of quarantine and vaccination, are now put forward rather as suggestive of discussion, than as the result of matured deliberation. Some years ago a Medical Bill was passed in this province which, though ignored by judges, coroners, and provincial authorities, is still in operation, under which all medical practitioners in this provinceholding diplomas from the recognised universities and colleges of the United Kingdom are enrolled and enjoy certain privileges. Should those gentlemen who, so far as we are aware, are the only body of medical men recognised by law in these colonies, be disposed to discuss and offer an opinion upon this subject it would be an act most creditable to themselves and most satisfactory to the public mind.