Smallpox epidemic in Australia 1789

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In the 1789 smallpox epidemic in Australia , it is estimated that more than 50% of the Darug and Eora , Aborigines from the region of what is now Sydney , died, and an unknown number in the rest of Australia . So far, the widespread opinion that smallpox was introduced by Europeans has been common. It is doubted today.

The course of smallpox is only documented by members of the Australian convict colony who settled in Port Jackson : From April 1789, its members found the bodies of many Aborigines on the rocks and beaches of Port Jackson. The Cadigal Group reported that of the original 50 members, only three survived in one week. Almost all pregnant women, two thirds of those under 5 and about one third of the rest of the population died. There were no cases of illness among the white population, as all whites had already been immunized from a previous illness or from a vaccination with a scab from a sick person.

Origin of the smallpox virus

The origin of the smallpox virus is controversial; as most likely applies today that sailors from Makassar the disease in their annual journey to the sea cucumbers -Collect in the Arnhem Land of Australia einschleppten and the disease spread from there across the continent.

Various possibilities of origin are being discussed: an endemic occurrence of smallpox is initially ruled out because the population density in Australia is insufficient to form a permanent reservoir for the virus. Therefore, the disease must have been brought into the country through contact with the outside world. The members of the expeditions of James Cook , 1770, and Jean-François de La Pérouse , 1788, are excluded as carriers as neither of them had contracted smallpox and the time between their contact with Aboriginal people and the onset of the disease was too long.

Also, none of the members who had First Fleet to Arthur Phillip smallpox. It is therefore discussed whether scabs introduced into glass bottles and contaminated with the smallpox virus intentionally or unintentionally infected the Aborigines. Opponents contradict this thesis by pointing out that a virus brought from England would not have survived the three years of travel and temporary tropical heat.

It is now considered most likely that seafarers from Makassar introduced smallpox; because an outbreak of smallpox in Indonesia is documented for the 1780s. The virus then spread from northern Australia along the trade routes across the continent until it reached Sydney and the course of the disease was observed there by the English. This theory is supported by reports from Arnhem Land from 1830: afterwards, many of their grandparents' generation were killed by disease as children; this disease was called purrer-purrer - the name for smallpox in the Makassan language is puru-puru. It is also noticeable that Aborigines with smallpox scars were spotted all over Australia in the 1820s, even before white settlers reached the regions, and that a total of 28 names for smallpox existed across the continent, such as nguya. (Pustule) in South Australia , boola (poison) in Western Australia , moo-nool-e-mindye (dust of the rainbow snake ) in Victoria ; and finally, there were simultaneous outbreaks of smallpox in Australia and Indonesia in the 1820s, 1860s, and 1870s.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Bradley: A voyage to New South Wales: the journal of Lieutenant William Bradley RN of HMS Sirius, 1786–1792. quoted from J. Flood, p. 125.
  2. ^ A b Frank Fenner : Smallpox and its Eradication. World Health Organization, 1988, quoted in J. Flood, p. 125.
  3. ^ A b c Campbell C Macknight: Macassans and Aborigines. In: Oceania. 42: 4, (1972), pp. 283-321, cited in J Flood, p. 127.

literature