CONNECTED WITH THE SHIP "ENGLAND."

19

G—No. 3

Gravesend. I cannot say if he was present at the inspection. During the first part of the voyage we were always about the deck; it was fine weather at this time. The doctor used to come down in the morning ;he came as far as the top bunk, and called upon them to got up. He came to the top bunk of each division. I mean the bunk nearest midships as the top bunk. His inspection did not take many minutes generally. I have seen him go round with the interpreter and also without him. I never saw the doctor personally inspect each bunk during first part of voyage. I was much engaged in nursing my brother-in-law's children and my own, and was constantly 'tween decks. The children began to get sick within a fortnight after we sailed. We called in the doctor in the case of my own child, when it fell sick ;he thought it was teething on examination, and lanced his gums. I thought he was not attentive to my sick child. An eruption was out on the child's face when he lanced the gums ; it afterwards proved to be measles. The doctor stated it was measles. The doctor directed the treatment of the child, but wo did not follow his directions ; he gave us medicine, but the child did not get it all. My wife and I had not confidence in the doctor. My reason, or one of my reasons for want of confidence in the doctor was, that one of the foreign children had a pimply rash, and my child had a rash and no pimples, and he called them both measles. I have seen the child in question within a few feet of me; the rash consisted of raised pimples, containing matter ; the face was covered with this rash. It was a young child, and afterwards died, but not from that disease. So far as I know, it might have been from the effects of it. My child got over the worst of the measles in three days, but afterwards had diarrhoea and then hooping-cough, so that it was ill more or less during the voyage. It was in splendid health when it came on board. Ido not recollect of the doctor seeing it when it had diarrhoea, but did when it had hooping-cough, for which he said he could do nothing. The doctor did not attend my w 7ife during her confinement. She was taken ill on the 6th February. I had previously on the 15th January, written the letter marked D, declining to have the doctor's services. I was aware that the doctor knew of my having done so, because he asked me to withdraw it, as otherwise he would not attend me or my family. Three or four days after her confinement he came to see her. She was then delirious, and with an eruption out on her face ; her features were disfigured, and head swollen ; eruption was also more or less on her body. The doctor was attentive at that time, and until she recovered, and I had no fault to find with him; the treatment was chiefly nourishing. He ordered her eyes to be washed, and gave her a gargle. She also got nourishing food, which I got from the captain. My baby died a week afterwards ; I think it was a premature birth. Ido not think the doctor ever saw the baby. I saw all the sickness that was 'tween decks. I saw no measles before the case of my own child, but there might have been. After that I saw at least one of Burness's children and Ralph Douglas with the same kind of measles as my child had. My child was vaccinated when he was six months old. My wife had been vaccinated ; the marks are quite plain on her arm. Two or three days after my wife was attacked, Mrs. Wellington was attacked with a similar complaint, but milder, —that is to say, that her features were not so much distorted, and the spots were as large, but fewer ; they had matter in them. The doctor attended her. She was confined to her bunk for upwards of a week, but was better before my wife. I did not think it was measles that my wife or Mrs. Wellington had from the first. I considered the disease my wife had was the same as the foreign child had ; the pimples were of the same kind. The doctor told me it was foreign measles. I have seen small-pox (several cases). I thought this was small-pox, and stated so to the doctor at the time ; he said that it was just measles getting into a severe form, from one case to the other. Mrs. Burness said to me it was smallpox, and also John McAulay, who had seen small-pox and measles. I mentioned to the captain that I did not think it was measles ; the captain told me that he did not think it was measles either, and that he did not know what it was. Cannot say that small-pox was ever mentioned by me to the captain. There was no person put into hospital 'tween decks during the voyage ; stores were kept there. I did not think it a fit place for an hospital, it being right in the centre of the people. It was not a place I should like to lie in if I was sick. The hospital was fitted up with two bunks. The most of the voyage the hospital was used as a store-room for serving out stores ; it was not full of stores, and they could have been removed at a moment's notice. The medicine chest belonging to the doctor was kept there during the early part of the voyage, so that he had therefore to go there to serve out medicines. I remember Mrs. Burness's arm being set by the doctor on the first occasion; I helped to hold her down. This was some time between the 10th and 14th Februarj^. Mrs. Burness lost four children on the voyage ; a girl aged seven or eight, who died the last; she wasted away. She had had hooping-cough and afterwards diarrhoea. Second, a boy five or six years ; had had measles and afterwards diarrhoea, and gradually wasted away. The third, a boy about four years, did not have measles ;he got a cold the first night, when we had to search for lodgings. I heard the mother of the child call the doctor's attention to the child, whose name was Alexander Tom; he said there was nothing the matter with the child, and ordered it to be put back in its bunk ; within forty-eight hours afterwards the child was dead. No particular symptoms except that it wore away. During the forty-eight hours before its death the parents gave the child wine, which they got from the captain. I saw them pouring it down its throat with a spoon. We also put a mustard poultice to its chest and back. We were not directed to do this by the doctor. The fourth child, a baby seven months old, was never very strong, in my opinion; it was wasted away, and died from exhaustion; it had hooping-cough. The second boy, James Burness, had been a day or two confined to bed when his mother met with her accident, so that he was left along with his sister in his father's charge ; he could not, of course, attend to them as well as a mother could, but he was very attentive to them ; he nursed them in every way, and got food for them from the captain. I had every opportunity of seeing these children, and saw no ill-treatment, but quite the reverse. I heard a rumour to the contrary ; a sailor named Knowles told me of it; he had no opportunity of knowing how the children were treated, and I told him at the time it was a lie. The doctor attended James Burness before he died, from day to day ; he examined him closely, as closely as I did myself. He said it was diarrhoea. The day the child died he made remarks in my hearing, that if the child had been under his care from the time we wrote the letter to the captain on the 15th January, it would not have been in that way. The child was then dead, and he did not know of it; he had seen the child on the previous day. All the Burnesses' children had been vaccinated. During the time I lived on shore, from Monday until Wednesday evening, Mr. Morrison, the Agent for Hawke's Bay,