Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease

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Home Coming meetings Past meetings About the Society Galleries of the Virtual Museum Main Galleries Medicine Surgery Anaesthesia X-rays Hospitals,other organisations Individuals of note Small Galleries Dentistry Nursing Ethnic medicine - Aboriginal - Chinese - Mediterran	Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease Acknowledgements: From a presentation by Dr Roy Scragg to the Society. 1 Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease Pox and Clap Gifted to the indigenous people of The Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. 2 Until the middle ages, the world as it was known to Europeans consisted only of Asia, North Africa and islands closest to the Europeans. 3 FIRST PHYSICAL CONTACT outside the world known to Europeans South Africa Bartholomeu Diaz 1488 West Indies Christopher Columbus 12 Oct 1492 India Vasco da Gama 1498 America Columbus 1502 Brazil Pedro Cabral 1502 East Pacific Samuel Wallis 24 June 1767 Aus. & NZ James Cook 22 Aug 1770 Diaz His crew turned him back opposite Madagascar. CC Bahamas, Hispaniola and Cuba: beaches and willing maidens. Santa Maria, a Carrick carack? with two masts; and La Pinta and La Niña, caravels. Pinta wrecked 39 sailors at La Navidad. da Gama The first sea route from Europe to India. CC 2^nd voyage, 39 Sailors killed. 3^rd coast of Venezuela. 4^th Central America. 4 EFFECTS OF CONTACT Immediate: Sexual intercourse Killing Disease exchange Short term: Killing epidemics War Exploitation of the land Long term: Christianisation Persistent population decline Dead replaced by slaves or indentured labour It is estimated that 25% of sailors were infected with venereal disease. The colonists in all cases endeavoured to exploit the land with plantations. The deaths of most of the young males required importation of slaves or labourers. 5 CONTAINED ENDEMIC DISEASES AFRICA Falciparum Malaria, Yaws, Yellow fever, Trypanosomiasis. AMERICA Pinta, Chagas disease, Rabies, Tuberculosis. EURASIA Vivax Malaria, Gonorrhoea, Rabies, Tuberculosis; All others. It is interesting that malaria, yaws and yellow fever all came to America with the Negro slaves. The tuberculosis and rabies as zoonosis were present in America and Eurasia. 6 SIGNIFICANT DISEASE TRANSFERS 1492 Gonorrhoea: Spain to West Indies 1493 Syphilis: Hispaniola to Barcelona; Falciparum malaria, Yellow fever and Yaws Africa to America 1507 Smallpox: Spain to West Indies 1767 "British Disease" to Tahiti, Syphilis and Gono to NZ 1788 Syphilis and Gono to Australia Syphilis was given the name of the recieving country's enemies, the French called it the Italian disease, British the French disease; Japanese the Chinese disease. Wallis in the Dolphin - 8 months later Bougainville. Did not worry about the gonorrhoea but called syph "Apa no Pretane" (English disease). Smallpox had a short incubation period and high mortality and did not occur in many of the Pacific Islands. Larger numbers on larger ships and the establishment of towns facilitated the movement of measles, smallpox and other infectious diseases around the world. 7 EPIDEMIC DECIMATION INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS Before Elapsed After Hispaniola 300,000 25 years 14,000 Tahiti 50,000 30 years 16,000 Hawaii 250,000 70 years 84,000 NZ 100,000 100 years 50,000 Australia 314,000 100 years 111,000 Tasmania 8,000 28 years 200 Tabar NI 8,000 25 years 2,489 All populations estimated except last two. In Tasmania "The absence of births rather than the frequency of deaths completed the destruction of the people", James Bonwick, see Wind p376. All of the populations shown were estimated except for those in Tasmania and Tabar. The Australian figure of 111,000 in 1890 continued to fall and was 60,000 in 1930. 8 SLAVES, CONVICTS and INDENTUREES 1495 West Indians to Spain 1501 Negroes to Hispaniola 1788 Convicts to NSW 1850 Melanesians blackbirded to Australia, Fiji and Samoa 1860 Indians to South Africa 1875 Indians to Fiji 1894 Asians to German New Guinea In NSW, the convicts did not come to service plantations but to establish a major British outpost; the deaths came after their arrival. In all the other cases the immigration was required to satisfy the demand for labour because introduced diseases had killed significant numbers of young men. In New Guinea, the Germans tried to recruit from New Ireland, but the New Ireland people were aware of the high mortality and poor conditions, and refused. 9 VENEREAL ETYMOLOGY Greek: Gone = Seed, Rhoia = Flow Syphilis: Syphilus a mythical shepherd in an Ovid story. In 1530 Girolamo Fracastoro, a physician of Verona, wrote a 1,300 verse poem about Sifilo who contracted syphilis and was saved from death by eating the leaf of a tree. AIDS: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Gonorrhoea maimed, Syphilis and AIDS killed quickly. Gonorrhoea is mentioned in the Bible where it was forbidden to lie with a woman with an issue. Syphilis and gonorrhoea were considered one disease until this was finally sorted by Ricord in 1839. 10 11 TREPONEMATOSES Treponema spirochaete is a commensal of many animal species and the human mouth. 21 strains of Treponema pallidum have been defined and linked to various manifestations. Venereal Syphilis variant relates to American lines; probably from a mutation in Hispaniola. Endemic syphilis, Yaws. Pinta, Bejel. All treponema infections give immunity to any other treponema infection. A person with yaws, bejel or pinta has immunity to syphilis; however these three diseases are limited to tropical countries. 12 Naples 1495 Alexander Benedetto, a papal doctor, reported that he had seen victims who had lost hands, feet, eyes, and noses because of the disease. Syphilis, he remarked, made "the entire body so repulsive to look at and causes such great suffering ... that this sickness is even more horrifying than incurable leprosy, and it can be fatal." "were as thoughe they hadde lyen in fire" Europeans were terrified of syphilis. 13 Sturt on the Murray, 1833 "The most loathsome diseases prevailed throughout the tribes, nor were the youngest infants exempt from them." and: "Syphilis raged amongst them with fearful violence; many had lost their noses, and all the glandular parts were considerably affected.". Elsewhere, the 'chiefs' summoned up young men as displays, seeking Sturt's explanation as to how this novel disease had come to the tribes. 14 Eyre syphilis Moorundie, 1844 written in cryptic Latin From that time very many were in a dying condition, some died and few, of those who associated frequently with them of any age or sex, were completely free from the signs of this disease. This illness seemed to appear among the natives in almost the same way as among Europeans but for various reasons was even more repulsive, especially because round ulcers almost an inch in size erupted at the same time on the skin. The centre of these filled with puss seeping forth and as they grew larger and larger and spread the surface of the whole body was afflicted with putrefaction and scabs which aroused horror and revulsion in those approaching them. 15 SYPHILIS PANDEMIC From Naples by land and sea in all directions over Eurasia from Ireland to Japan. From Iberia by explorers to all communities without yaws, bejel or pinta. Manifested as a killing disease from primary through to tertiary in months. Along with smallpox, influenza and measles it caused massive depopulation. 16 POPULATION DECLINE Immunity muted killing epidemics but in many communities deaths still exceeded births. Decline of indigenous people was hidden by the increasing numbers of immigrants. People and missionaries noticed infertility or unusually small families. Last 12 Tasmanian women produced only 2 children, both of whom died; gonorrhoeal infertility. In October 1847, 12 men, 22 women and 10 children aged 4 to 14 were taken to Oyster Cove on the Derwent near Hobart, there they proceeded to die. In 1854 there were 3 men, 11 women and 2 boys. Trugininni, the last Tasmanian died on 8 May 1876. Trugininni and two female companions were infertile and all of the children born to the 22 women died. Some of these were half castes. Gonorrhoea completed the destruction of the Tasmanians. 17 John Gunther to Bob Melrose 13^th April, 1950 "On Tabar Island I have started something - I doubt whether it will have any significance, but it might give some answers." "We are giving every man, woman and child on Tabar 200,000 units of penicillin, ..." "We are giving all treatment for hookworm and a course of N.A.B. injections, and are placing anti-malarials at their disposal." Bob Melrose was the pre-war Government Secretary who was on leave in Australia. This blunderbuss therapy was set in motion immediately with a Doctor detailed to ensure it happened. The use of penicillin and what? 18 Gunther to Scragg, June 9 1950 "This will confirm that it is the present intention that you should become District Medical Officer, New Ireland. The District is one where there has been a frank depopulation of 27% in twenty years." "Such a state of affairs needs early and rapid correction. Much research has been done there recently including a repeat demographic survey by Mr. Chinnery." I was in Sydney expecting to go to Rabaul or Sohano completing my DTMH. I knew nothing of the declining population and it was not included in the subjects under consideration. The new Australians bound for New Guinea were given lectures by Camilla Wedgwood on anthropology including depopulation. These lectures conditioned Mezaros and Ziegas to consider kuru a psychosomatic condition. 19 Population of 5 Communities 1908 1912 1914 1929 1930 1940 1953 TABAR 8000 3483 1952 1466 TIGAK 1397 1006 814 BUKA 6810 6957 8286 The depopulating populations of Tabar and Tigak responded to the penicillin campaign after 50 years of consistent decline. Buka had a similar decline caused by high mortality from 1930 to 1946, then more than doubled by 1972. The nadir was at the end of the war for all populations studied except for Fuyuge where the dominance of seasonal malaria caused the balance of mortality and fertility. 20 HYPOTHESES The people blamed sorcery or deliberate consumption of reputed contraceptives or abortifacients plants. Missionaries rejected sorcery but accepted the latter reasons. Anthropologists postulated psychological causes resulting from the disruption of the traditional culture by the invaders and Christianity. Medical administrators and native affairs officers were confused by opinions but agreed with anthropologists. Doctors in active care of the people were frequently presented with genital and pelvic conditions in both sexes pathognomonic of gonorrhoea. WHR Rivers led the charge, a psychiatrist who became an anthropologist after study of the Torres Strait islanders in 1898. Reputation made during the war but maintained in anthropology. The Doctors who had worked in depopulating areas pre-war had disappeared, and the post-war Doctors came under the influence of the anthropologists. 21 PROMISCUOUS INTERCOURSE Powdermaker noted in Malagan ceremonies New Ireland people would: "dance for several more hours, far into the night, which concludes with promiscuous intercourse. The only rule observed is the one of exogamy between members of the same moiety." Cook records that off Hawaii: "It was not possible to keep [the women] out of the ship and no women I ever met with were more ready to bestow their favours, indeed it appeared to me that they came with no other view." From 1840, New Ireland was surrounded by alternate sailing routes to China, the Philippines and India; there was also a whaling area to the north east. The New Ireland women had a reputation for promiscuous behaviour. Coulter in the 1950’s reported aggressive behaviour by Polynesian women from other islands. 22 THE CONUNDRUM a psychosomatic phenomenon "the physical causes were contributory to the wider psychological ones, or agencies through which these latter worked." "But the root of the matter lay with that curious despair which dominated the native mind and coloured his every action and thought". Roberts, 1927 and still taught in 1952. The quote is from S. H. Roberts "Review of Depopulation". 23 ON THE CONTRARY a physical condition. Sailors infected with chronic gonorrhoea introduced this infection into the promiscuous New Ireland society and the Malagan ceremony primed an epidemic. The failure to produce children caused the ‘curious despair’. 24 STUDY OF POPULATION DECLINE In New Ireland intercourse was a frequent event and conception should have occurred. The people of Kavieng were desperately changing partners but they got only ectopic pregnancies or nothing. For the first time in the 50 year study of population. decline, there was an X-ray unit which enabled the investigation of female infertility. The X-ray unit was a relic from ANGAU distributed to the main hospitals. 25 Responsible partner in infertile couples Wife Husband Fertile Sterile Doubtful Male Totals Fertile 11 29 - 40 Subfertile 3 8 - 11 Sterile 3 6 1 10 Divorced/Dead 2 5 2 9 Too Old 2 5 - 7 Female Totals 21 53 3 77 Marriages No. 11 57 9 % 14 74 12 26 Buka and New Ireland, 1953 Area Women Infertile Stillbirths Deaths, 0-1 yr Popn. Change 28 yr L'koa 94 4.3 26 71 +154.0 Solas 133 9.0 16 319 +103.2 Tigak 196 44.6 67 125 -24.8 Tabar 407 45.2 45 142 -41.0 In Tigak and Tabar, 40% infertility rate was significant. In Solas, infant mortality was 32%, but depopulation did not follow as infertility was only 9%. 27 Copy of page 19, skip 28 INFERTILITY FROM GONORRHOEA WHO expert committee 1975: "The most complete epidemiological study on the prevalence of infertility, pregnancy wastage, and child loss is that by Scragg on New Ireland in the West Pacific. This study combined a demographic survey and clinical diagnostic studies on defined groups of women". The community wide use of penicillin for yaws eradication and treatment of infections made it impossible for this study to be undertaken anywhere else in the world; it had to be done when it was done or it could not be done. 29 HIDDEN EPIDEMIC Over time epidemic gonorrhoea was as significant as smallpox as it continued to gnaw away at communities year after year. Epidemics passed unnoticed but the permanent sequelae were epidemic. 'Gonorrhoea' does not appear in McMichael's world epidemiology. If gonorrhoea had not been identified as the principal cause of population decline in 1953, the persistent decline would have gone down in world history as a psychosomatic phenomenon. 30 AMERICAN BLACKS Peter Pirie studied the changing fertility of this population before and after penicillin use. In 1980 25 million were counted. If there had been no gonorrhoea from 1930, Pirie has projected this segment of the American population would have been 40 million by 1980. Pirie only realised the significance of gonorrhoea when he read my thesis on depopulation in 1958. 31 PENICILLIN THEN THE PILL The level of promiscuous behaviour set the prevalence of gonorrhoea in a community. Gonorrhoea was more effective than the condom or any other contraceptive in limiting population growth in many countries. Penicillin was universally available from 1950 and reduced pelvic infections, and new brides became pregnant. 32 1960's POPULATION SPIRAL Penicillin lowered mortality and reduced the incidence of gonorrhoea, raising fertility and opening the population flood gates in countries where its use was not succeeded by a significant adoption of the contraceptive pill. I doubt if it will be possible to prove this final statement. It is based on the change of fertility that Pirie was able to identify in American blacks. 33 WORLD POPULATION 34 Principal references Bonwick J: The last of the Tasmanians. 1870 Butlin N G: Our own aggression. 1983 Cleland J B: Diseases among the Australian Aborigines. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1928 Dowling J F: A Great Deal of Sickness. 1997 Eyre E J: Journal of Discovery Vol 2. 1845 Sturt C: Two Expeditions into the Interior. Vol 2.1833 -o0o-

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Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease

Acknowledgements:

From a presentation by Dr Roy Scragg to the Society.

Columbus, West Indies & the British Disease

Pox and Clap
Gifted to the indigenous people of
The Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia.

Until the middle ages, the world as it was known to Europeans consisted only of Asia, North Africa and islands closest to the Europeans.

FIRST PHYSICAL CONTACT
outside the world known to Europeans

South Africa

Bartholomeu Diaz

1488

West Indies

Christopher Columbus

12 Oct 1492

India

Vasco da Gama

1498

America

Columbus

1502

Brazil

Pedro Cabral

1502

East Pacific

Samuel Wallis

24 June 1767

Aus. & NZ

James Cook

22 Aug 1770

Diaz

His crew turned him back opposite Madagascar.

Bahamas, Hispaniola and Cuba: beaches and willing maidens.
Santa Maria, a Carrick carack? with two masts; and La Pinta and La Niña, caravels.
Pinta wrecked 39 sailors at La Navidad.

da Gama

The first sea route from Europe to India.

2^nd voyage, 39 Sailors killed.
3^rd coast of Venezuela.
4^th Central America.

EFFECTS OF CONTACT

Immediate:
- Sexual intercourse
- Killing
- Disease exchange

Short term:
- Killing epidemics
- War
- Exploitation of the land

Long term:
- Christianisation
- Persistent population decline
- Dead replaced by slaves or indentured labour

It is estimated that 25% of sailors were infected with venereal disease.
The colonists in all cases endeavoured to exploit the land with plantations.
The deaths of most of the young males required importation of slaves or labourers.

CONTAINED ENDEMIC DISEASES

AFRICA

Falciparum Malaria, Yaws, Yellow fever, Trypanosomiasis.

AMERICA

Pinta, Chagas disease, Rabies, Tuberculosis.

EURASIA

Vivax Malaria, Gonorrhoea, Rabies, Tuberculosis; All others.

It is interesting that malaria, yaws and yellow fever all came to America with the Negro slaves.
The tuberculosis and rabies as zoonosis were present in America and Eurasia.

SIGNIFICANT DISEASE TRANSFERS

1492

Gonorrhoea: Spain to West Indies

1493

Syphilis: Hispaniola to Barcelona; Falciparum malaria, Yellow fever and Yaws Africa to America

1507

Smallpox: Spain to West Indies

1767

"British Disease" to Tahiti, Syphilis and Gono to NZ

1788

Syphilis and Gono to Australia

Syphilis was given the name of the recieving country's enemies, the French called it the Italian disease, British the French disease; Japanese the Chinese disease.
Wallis in the Dolphin - 8 months later Bougainville. Did not worry about the gonorrhoea but called syph "Apa no Pretane" (English disease).
Smallpox had a short incubation period and high mortality and did not occur in many of the Pacific Islands.
Larger numbers on larger ships and the establishment of towns facilitated the movement of measles, smallpox and other infectious diseases around the world.

EPIDEMIC DECIMATION
INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS

Before

Elapsed

After

Hispaniola

300,000

25 years

14,000

Tahiti

50,000

30 years

16,000

Hawaii

250,000

70 years

84,000

100,000

100 years

50,000

Australia

314,000

100 years

111,000

Tasmania

8,000

28 years

200

Tabar NI

8,000

25 years

2,489

All populations estimated except last two.

In Tasmania "The absence of births rather than the frequency of deaths completed the destruction of the people", James Bonwick, see Wind p376.
All of the populations shown were estimated except for those in Tasmania and Tabar.
The Australian figure of 111,000 in 1890 continued to fall and was 60,000 in 1930.

SLAVES, CONVICTS and INDENTUREES

1495

West Indians to Spain

1501

Negroes to Hispaniola

1788

Convicts to NSW

1850

Melanesians blackbirded to Australia, Fiji and Samoa

1860

Indians to South Africa

1875

Indians to Fiji

1894

Asians to German New Guinea

In NSW, the convicts did not come to service plantations but to establish a major British outpost; the deaths came after their arrival.
In all the other cases the immigration was required to satisfy the demand for labour because introduced diseases had killed significant numbers of young men.
In New Guinea, the Germans tried to recruit from New Ireland, but the New Ireland people were aware of the high mortality and poor conditions, and refused.

VENEREAL ETYMOLOGY

Greek: Gone = Seed, Rhoia = Flow

Syphilis: Syphilus a mythical shepherd in an Ovid story. In 1530 Girolamo Fracastoro, a physician of Verona, wrote a 1,300 verse poem about Sifilo who contracted syphilis and was saved from death by eating the leaf of a tree.

AIDS: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

Gonorrhoea maimed, Syphilis and AIDS killed quickly.

Gonorrhoea is mentioned in the Bible where it was forbidden to lie with a woman with an issue.
Syphilis and gonorrhoea were considered one disease until this was finally sorted by Ricord in 1839.

TREPONEMATOSES

Treponema spirochaete is a commensal of many animal species and the human mouth.
21 strains of Treponema pallidum have been defined and linked to various manifestations.
Venereal Syphilis variant relates to American lines; probably from a mutation in Hispaniola.
Endemic syphilis, Yaws.
Pinta, Bejel.

All treponema infections give immunity to any other treponema infection.
A person with yaws, bejel or pinta has immunity to syphilis; however these three diseases are limited to tropical countries.

Naples 1495

Alexander Benedetto, a papal doctor, reported that he had seen victims who had lost hands, feet, eyes, and noses because of the disease. Syphilis, he remarked, made "the entire body so repulsive to look at and causes such great suffering ... that this sickness is even more horrifying than incurable leprosy, and it can be fatal."

"were as thoughe they hadde lyen in fire"

Europeans were terrified of syphilis.

Sturt on the Murray, 1833

"The most loathsome diseases prevailed throughout the tribes, nor were the youngest infants exempt from them." and: "Syphilis raged amongst them with fearful violence; many had lost their noses, and all the glandular parts were considerably affected.".

Elsewhere, the 'chiefs' summoned up young men as displays, seeking Sturt's explanation as to how this novel disease had come to the tribes.

Eyre syphilis Moorundie, 1844
written in cryptic Latin

From that time very many were in a dying condition, some died and few, of those who associated frequently with them of any age or sex, were completely free from the signs of this disease.

This illness seemed to appear among the natives in almost the same way as among Europeans but for various reasons was even more repulsive, especially because round ulcers almost an inch in size erupted at the same time on the skin. The centre of these filled with puss seeping forth and as they grew larger and larger and spread the surface of the whole body was afflicted with putrefaction and scabs which aroused horror and revulsion in those approaching them.

SYPHILIS PANDEMIC

From Naples by land and sea in all directions over Eurasia from Ireland to Japan.
From Iberia by explorers to all communities without yaws, bejel or pinta.
Manifested as a killing disease from primary through to tertiary in months.
Along with smallpox, influenza and measles it caused massive depopulation.

POPULATION DECLINE

Immunity muted killing epidemics but in many communities deaths still exceeded births.
Decline of indigenous people was hidden by the increasing numbers of immigrants.
People and missionaries noticed infertility or unusually small families.
Last 12 Tasmanian women produced only 2 children, both of whom died; gonorrhoeal infertility.

In October 1847, 12 men, 22 women and 10 children aged 4 to 14 were taken to Oyster Cove on the Derwent near Hobart, there they proceeded to die. In 1854 there were 3 men, 11 women and 2 boys. Trugininni, the last Tasmanian died on 8 May 1876. Trugininni and two female companions were infertile and all of the children born to the 22 women died. Some of these were half castes.

Gonorrhoea completed the destruction of the Tasmanians.

John Gunther to Bob Melrose
13^th April, 1950

"On Tabar Island I have started something - I doubt whether it will have any significance, but it might give some answers."

"We are giving every man, woman and child on Tabar 200,000 units of penicillin, ..."

"We are giving all treatment for hookworm and a course of N.A.B. injections, and are placing anti-malarials at their disposal."

Bob Melrose was the pre-war Government Secretary who was on leave in Australia.
This blunderbuss therapy was set in motion immediately with a Doctor detailed to ensure it happened. The use of penicillin and what?

Gunther to Scragg, June 9 1950

"This will confirm that it is the present intention that you should become District Medical Officer, New Ireland. The District is one where there has been a frank depopulation of 27% in twenty years."

"Such a state of affairs needs early and rapid correction. Much research has been done there recently including a repeat demographic survey by Mr. Chinnery."

I was in Sydney expecting to go to Rabaul or Sohano completing my DTMH. I knew nothing of the declining population and it was not included in the subjects under consideration.

The new Australians bound for New Guinea were given lectures by Camilla Wedgwood on anthropology including depopulation. These lectures conditioned Mezaros and Ziegas to consider kuru a psychosomatic condition.

Population of 5 Communities

1908

1912

1914

1929

1930

1940

1953

TABAR

8000

3483

1952

1466

TIGAK

1397

1006

814

BUKA

6810

6957

8286

The depopulating populations of Tabar and Tigak responded to the penicillin campaign after 50 years of consistent decline.
Buka had a similar decline caused by high mortality from 1930 to 1946, then more than doubled by 1972.

The nadir was at the end of the war for all populations studied except for Fuyuge where the dominance of seasonal malaria caused the balance of mortality and fertility.

HYPOTHESES

The people blamed sorcery or deliberate consumption of reputed contraceptives or abortifacients plants.
Missionaries rejected sorcery but accepted the latter reasons.
Anthropologists postulated psychological causes resulting from the disruption of the traditional culture by the invaders and Christianity.
Medical administrators and native affairs officers were confused by opinions but agreed with anthropologists.
Doctors in active care of the people were frequently presented with genital and pelvic conditions in both sexes pathognomonic of gonorrhoea.

WHR Rivers led the charge, a psychiatrist who became an anthropologist after study of the Torres Strait islanders in 1898.

Reputation made during the war but maintained in anthropology.

The Doctors who had worked in depopulating areas pre-war had disappeared, and the post-war Doctors came under the influence of the anthropologists.

PROMISCUOUS INTERCOURSE

Powdermaker noted in Malagan ceremonies New Ireland people would: "dance for several more hours, far into the night, which concludes with promiscuous intercourse. The only rule observed is the one of exogamy between members of the same moiety."
Cook records that off Hawaii: "It was not possible to keep [the women] out of the ship and no women I ever met with were more ready to bestow their favours, indeed it appeared to me that they came with no other view."

From 1840, New Ireland was surrounded by alternate sailing routes to China, the Philippines and India; there was also a whaling area to the north east.

The New Ireland women had a reputation for promiscuous behaviour.

Coulter in the 1950’s reported aggressive behaviour by Polynesian women from other islands.

THE CONUNDRUM
a psychosomatic phenomenon

"the physical causes were contributory to the wider psychological ones, or agencies through which these latter worked."

"But the root of the matter lay with that curious despair which dominated the native mind and coloured his every action and thought".

Roberts, 1927 and still taught in 1952.

The quote is from S. H. Roberts "Review of Depopulation".

ON THE CONTRARY
a physical condition.

Sailors infected with chronic gonorrhoea introduced this infection into the promiscuous New Ireland society and the Malagan ceremony primed an epidemic.
The failure to produce children caused the ‘curious despair’.

STUDY OF POPULATION DECLINE

In New Ireland intercourse was a frequent event and conception should have occurred.
The people of Kavieng were desperately changing partners but they got only ectopic pregnancies or nothing.
For the first time in the 50 year study of population. decline, there was an X-ray unit which enabled the investigation of female infertility.

The X-ray unit was a relic from ANGAU distributed to the main hospitals.

Responsible partner in infertile couples

Wife

Husband

Fertile

Sterile

Doubtful

Male Totals

Fertile

Subfertile

Sterile

Divorced/Dead

Too Old

Female Totals

Marriages No.

Buka and New Ireland, 1953

Area

Women

Infertile

Stillbirths

Deaths, 0-1 yr

Popn. Change 28 yr

L'koa

4.3

+154.0

Solas

133

9.0

319

+103.2

Tigak

196

44.6

125

-24.8

Tabar

407

45.2

142

-41.0

In Tigak and Tabar, 40% infertility rate was significant. In Solas, infant mortality was 32%, but depopulation did not follow as infertility was only 9%.

Copy of page 19, skip

INFERTILITY FROM GONORRHOEA

WHO expert committee 1975: "The most complete epidemiological study on the prevalence of infertility, pregnancy wastage, and child loss is that by Scragg on New Ireland in the West Pacific. This study combined a demographic survey and clinical diagnostic studies on defined groups of women".

The community wide use of penicillin for yaws eradication and treatment of infections made it impossible for this study to be undertaken anywhere else in the world; it had to be done when it was done or it could not be done.

HIDDEN EPIDEMIC

Over time epidemic gonorrhoea was as significant as smallpox as it continued to gnaw away at communities year after year.
Epidemics passed unnoticed but the permanent sequelae were epidemic. 'Gonorrhoea' does not appear in McMichael's world epidemiology.
If gonorrhoea had not been identified as the principal cause of population decline in 1953, the persistent decline would have gone down in world history as a psychosomatic phenomenon.

AMERICAN BLACKS

Peter Pirie studied the changing fertility of this population before and after penicillin use. In 1980 25 million were counted.
If there had been no gonorrhoea from 1930, Pirie has projected this segment of the American population would have been 40 million by 1980.

Pirie only realised the significance of gonorrhoea when he read my thesis on depopulation in 1958.

PENICILLIN THEN THE PILL

The level of promiscuous behaviour set the prevalence of gonorrhoea in a community.
Gonorrhoea was more effective than the condom or any other contraceptive in limiting population growth in many countries.
Penicillin was universally available from 1950 and reduced pelvic infections, and new brides became pregnant.

1960's POPULATION SPIRAL

Penicillin lowered mortality and reduced the incidence of gonorrhoea, raising fertility and opening the population flood gates in countries where its use was not succeeded by a significant adoption of the contraceptive pill.

I doubt if it will be possible to prove this final statement. It is based on the change of fertility that Pirie was able to identify in American blacks.

WORLD POPULATION

Principal references

Bonwick J: The last of the Tasmanians. 1870
Butlin N G: Our own aggression. 1983
Cleland J B: Diseases among the Australian Aborigines. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1928
Dowling J F: A Great Deal of Sickness. 1997
Eyre E J: Journal of Discovery Vol 2. 1845
Sturt C: Two Expeditions into the Interior. Vol 2.1833

-o0o-