Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/106

 44 DISEASES. DISEASESMEDICAL TREATMENT. The principal diseases to which these tribes of Aborigines are subject are of a scrofulous nature. The tendency to tuberculosis is seen in childhood in the form of tabes mesenterica, and sometimes of hydrocephalus. Towards the age of puberty it is developed as pulmonary consumption. Sometimes it is carried off before the age of puberty by induration and ulceration of the glands of the neck. The above are the most fatal diseases amongst the Narrinyeri; the majority of deaths are caused by them. The other diseases to which they are subject are liver complaint, diarrhoea and dysentery, and, rarely, brain fever. I have never known a case of intermittent fever amongst them. Of course they are subject to inflammation of the bowels, kidneys, liver, lungs, and throat. They have amongst them a skin disease, which they call wirrullume; it resembles pustular itch,* but it is not communicable to Europeans; even half-castes seldom have it, although they may sleep with persons suffering from it. The application of sulphur is a specific against the wirrullume, I have never known a native to have the measles. This disease has at different times prevailed amongst the whites, but the blacks, although constantly about the dwellings of those labouring under it, never caught it. This is remarkable when we remember what devastation this disease caused in the islands of Polynesia. I have never known a case of scarlatina amongst the Aborigines, although it was very prevalent some years ago amongst the whites; and I have reason to believe that a great deal of clothing from houses infected by the disease was given to the natives. The natives are very subject to epidemic influenza, which they call nruwi. They have a tradition that some sixty years ago a terrible disease came down the River Murray, and carried off the natives  Since writing the above, I have known of a few having measles, but very few, and although no precautions were taken against contagion, the disease did not spread.
 * Some medical men have said that it was impetigo contagiosa.