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First Fleet Smallpox
Recent scholars, Christopher Warren (2007) and Craig Mear (2008), have shown that the First Fleet probably introduced live smallpox virus into Australian aboriginal tribes. Earlier writers were divided over 1) whether the First Fleet introduced smallpox and 2) whether this was deliberate. Mear's paper resolves most of this controversy except for some denialist disputation from Quadrant a rightwing magazine.

In 2009, Michael Bennett argued "... that it was communicated deliberately" in Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Bennett proposed that convicts may have been responsible, as an act of revenge against local Aboriginal tribes.

Test
For over 200 years questions have been raised about the outbreak of smallpox near Sydney Cove in 1789. Various theories have been proposed and debated but, it appears, without reaching any definite conclusion. For historians, the key issue has always been, was the outbreak a deliberate act by British officials, or was the outbreak the result of some alternative scenario of which there are well over 30 alternatives.

The only way out of this impasse is to bring in new evidence from other disciplines – archaeology, ethnology, meteorology, epidemiology and anthropology. Once this is done a firm multi-disciplinary basis can be built for objectively entering and to some extent, resolving old controversies.

Archaeology provides valuable insights through analysing the patterns and dispositions of corpses. Anthropology details tribal behaviours, seasonal migration patterns and trading behaviours that impact on the spread of disease. Epidemiology informs us about how and when smallpox spreads in hunter gatherer communities, and traditional oral history recorded by ethnologists, guides us towards understanding what in fact actually occurred.

Meteorology is quite useful as meteorological data can be used to finally resolve the first, threshold controversy namely, whether warm temperatures during the voyage would have sterilised the stocks of smallpox held by First Fleet surgeons. Three sets of daily meteorological records from the First Fleet survive. Surgeon John White maintained one record on board the Charlotte – a convict transport ship. Captain John Hunter and Lieutenant Bradley maintained another record on board the Sirius a naval escort ship. Both independent sets corroborate each other. On arrival Lieutenant William Dawes continued recording daily temperatures and his notebook is now in the Royal Society collection in London.

After incorporating the results of experiments by Wolff and Croon on the decay of virus in smallpox scabs, it is clear that at least some First Fleet virus materials would have reached the shores of Sydney Cove with sufficient residual activity to infect one or two local Aborigines particularly in the case of bottles of virus being broadcast generally amongst selected clans.

Surely, this means that controversy on this point is ended.

A second persistent controversy centres on suggestions that smallpox may have entered Australia through northern Australia when Macassan seafarers from the Celebe islands, set up temporary camps while processing sea-cucumbers for the Chinese market. This theory gained most support from those who held that First Fleet stocks of smallpox did not survive the voyage. From this point of view, such an alternative source appeared to be the only option and therefore grabbed artificial attention, even though there was no real basis for such hypothesis. A close examination of the circumstances associated with Macassan theory, including the medical history of smallpox in the Celebes (or Sulawesi as it is now known), is needed. The Dutch maintained medical services in and around Macassar for most of the Eighteenth century and the first report of smallpox only occurs in 1789 – far too late for it to have caused the 1789 epidemic thousands of miles away near Sydney Cove.

Even if smallpox entered Australia anywhere between the Kimberlys and Gulf of Carpentaria, and spread across the continent by 1789, this would certainly leave obvious tell-tale evidence in the form of smallpox pock marks right along native trade and traffic routes. Children suffering smallpox aged 10 in 1790 would be in their 30’s when Europeans started spreading from Sydney Cove. Now we know there are no reports from early explorers of sightings of smallpox scars in inland Australia. To the contrary, as at 1824, explorers were variously reporting that smallpox was unknown amongst Aboriginal tribes, that local clans were free of disease, and that their skins were sleek and without a blemish. Maccassan theorists have simply not provided any explanation, let alone any rigorous basis, for their suppositions. Scholarly hand-waving will not do.

Surely, unless some basis arises, controversy on this point has to end.

There is another smouldering controversy. Even as late as 2013, authors are suggesting that the epidemic that depopulated much of Port Jackson could have been cowpox, according to Jackie French, or chicken pox, according to Jack Carmody. There is no basis for considering cowpox, however, hypothetically, a First Fleeter with singles may have infected local tribes with the singles virus which then manifested as a virulent form of chicken pox.

But the chicken-pox theory is an old theory that has already been dealt with. It was floated by Hingston in the Australian Medical Journal in …… and was immediately rebutted by a leading virologist, Professor Frank Fenner. For much of his career, Professor Fenner specialised in smallpox and obtained vast experience of the disease in all its forms while serving on the World Health Organisation’s project to eradicate smallpox. Fenner noted:

It is not reasonable to reinject chickenpox theory without addressing the issues raised by Fenner. However there are other problems with the chickenpox theory. In 1828 smallpox erupted in Central New South Wales near Bathurst and Wellington Valley. A military surgeon – John Mair – investigating the epidemic reported that elderly natives showing signs of previous smallpox, were now immune from contracting the disease. This demonstrates definitively that the 1789 outbreak was genuine smallpox. No other disease could have both arrived with the First Fleet and generate immunity to smallpox. The relevant extracts from Surgeon Mair’s report were published by the Australian government in 1919 in Dr John Cumpston’s History of Small-Pox in Australia. At the time Dr Cumpston was the Director of Australia’s Quarantine Service.