THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY JANUARY 13, 1887.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7844, 13 January 1887, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY JANUARY 13, 1887.

Our exemption from three of the most dreaded. visitations with which , the human race can be afflictedcholera, small pox, and hydrophobia—is among the blessings for which colonists have reason to be grateful but the enjoyment of it is to an extent discounted by the periodical alarms to which the colonies are subjected. when menaced by one or the other of these. Our proximity and increasing intercouse with the East, where cholera is endemic, must always leave us liable to a visit from that most dreaded of all modern pestilences; ' while our frequent arrivals

from San Francisco on the one hand, t and Great Britain on the other, must in i like manner expose our shores to the t appearance of small pox. Indeed, the inauguration of these new lines of _ French and German steamers, coming . from ports and from populations among 1 which the more stringent forms of e modern sanitary laws are almost wholly ® ignored, must manifold increase the 6 likelihood of small-pox making its c appearance ; and it is an augury of ill 1 that the very first vessel of the new * Germanlineof State-subsidised steamers 1 has signalised her appearance in 5 Australian waters by depositing small- * pox at the soveral quarantine stations j of four Australian porta. No doubt the 5 culpable blundering which has allowed i a plague-stricken ship to proceed on her 1 work of death from port to port will ' not be repeated; but, despite all the 1 precautions that may be used, we may j as well face the prospect that, sooner or ] later, this loathsome and fatal disease ; will find a footing on our shores, unless i the possible invasion is provided ] against by all the resources that sani- 1 tary science has placed at our disposal. 1 The long continuance of passenger ' and emigrant traffic between Eng- . land and these colonies, has afforded , opportunities for bringing precautions at the port of embarkation and on board ship to perfection, and the usual cleanness of the bills of health pre- 1 sented by crowded passenger vessels from England is one of the triumphs of the age.' Such a condition of things we need not expect for many a year, if ever, in the case of crowded passenger vessels from French and German ports, and the introduction of the new order of things must impose on the colonies the necessity of far greater attention to every requirement of sanitation, so as to prevent this (or other) dangerous and infectious malady, which may be introduced from finding a nidus for the propagation of the germs of disease. The value of quarantine as a means of preventing the advent of a dangerous epidemic has, in modern times, been greatly questioned, and among those who have given moat attention to the . science of disease and the means of its prevention, as in England, quarantine has been virtually discarded as useless. While, therefore, we must wish all success to the efforts that are being made in Australia, under far more favourable circumstances than are possible in England, to arrest the admission of smallpox, our course is to prepare against its coming by the means which have drawn a cordon around England and made its shores nearly exempt from a visitation of cholera, even though raging on the continent. Sanitation has given peace of mind to the people of England in face of cholera approaching, and it was only after public feeling had been repeatedly aroused to alarm and almost panic that sanitary efforts were pushed to success. The type of smallpox distributed by the Preussen appears to be a bad one, and .it would be difficult to say how it might develop under the new conditions found in the colonies. It is to be feared that there are very few towns or cities in this colony in such a condition of cleanliness as would withhold encouragement to the spread of the disease while it is very certain that there has been everywhere throughout the colonies far greater negligence as to vaccination—the great prophylactic that has saved this generation from the terrible mortality and frightful disfigurement to which our fathers were subject. At present, in Great Britain, there is really no great fear of small-pox, which is constantly existent in every populous city and town in the United Kingdom, and this absence of alarm is due, not merely to improved sanitation, but to the very [general practice of vaccination. We rarely, if ever, hear in the colonies of a man being summoned for neglecting to have his child vaccinated, an incident that is of frequent occurrence in England ; and this absence of such prosecution in the colonies is by no means from the universality of compliance with the Jaw, but from the general indifference as to its necessity. What with the constant presence of variola, and the extreme stringency with which the vaccination law is enforced in England, this once-dreaded malady is able there to find but few victims unprotected against its fatal clutch; and with the exception of those who from conviction ate opposed to the propriety of Dr. Jenner's specific, and either resist or evade the law, the whole people may be regarded as having provided against the disease by at least one vaccination. Experience and experiment have there shown that by repeated vaccination at intervals, absolute immunity from this serious disease can be obtained, and it is not to the credit of a colony like ours, where the whole community is far beyond the average intelligence of the masses at home, that there should be any grounds left for dreading an invasion of small-pox. There is no other disease, so far as is yet known, against which nature has furnished us with such a sure weapon of defence, and while at our first line of defence, which may be regarded as the quarantine stations, the enemy should be vigorously and determinedly fought, it is the imperative duty of the Government to have measures taken to see that vaccination has been generally performed. For if people have been so unwise or so negligent as to not have provided for their own and their children's safety, it is the duty of the Government, as representing society, to see to it that men | and families do not, by their negligence in this matter, convert themselves into receptacles to catch the disease, and to spread it with renewed vigour among those who surround them. There seems an absolute certainty that if vaccination were universal, small-pox, if it appeared at all among us, could not ; maintain a footing in the country, while any cases of the disease occurring would be of so mild a type that it would cease to be regarded with any i concern. It is the un vaccinated and the , insufficiently vaccinated that i create any cause for alarm,, and it does seem very hard that in their selfish indifference to other people's welfare, even-if they are careless with regard to their own, they should impose the necessity of precautions on the part of others and of the Government, which, were it not for their negligence, would be wholly uncalled for. It is sincerely to be hoped that, in the isolated spots on which, the several quarantine stations are placed, this disagreeable and objectionable malady will be stamped cut; but if it leaps the cordon and spreads through the colonies we have

the remedy in our own hands, if that t remedy is only vigorously enforced by j the law. ;■ s —.—— .