Author: Public health, quarantine & sanitation.
Title: A collection of sixteen reports on vaccination, quarantine, disease and sanitation in Sydney.
Description: Sydney, Govt printer 1881-84. Foolscap, together in modern cloth. Signs of use, a few short tears, a couple of plans with repairs, minor but for the plan of the Little Bay Sanatorium (with report 12 - a revised version of that with report 6) which is in pieces but all there. ¶ A modern binding but not a modern gathering: there is a contemporary handwritten list of contents at the front. This has every sign of being compiled by a body like the Board of Health. The Report of the Board on the small-pox epidemic has been extensively marked up and corrected by hand. Each of these is worth its own long maundering note, but. All these papers come in some way out of the small-pox outbreak of 1881-82 and you may not be surprised that it become political real fast. It was a debacle. First among the blameworthy were the Chinese, blamed for introducing the disease, then rightly came the officials, disorganisation, unreadiness and general incompetence top to bottom. The vaccination paper records the lengthy opinions of fifteen esteemed medicos and largely concerns small-pox - still the only vaccination there was. All but John Le Gay Brereton were in favour. He regarded vaccination an evil worse than disease. Sixteen pages on schools versus 66 pages on wood pavements may seem unbalanced until you read the board's report and the evidence and realise that given how many roads were paved with wood it's a wonder that anyone was alive - not swept away by yellow fever. Thank heaven for Australian hardwoods. The Fijian representative to the 1884 conference couldn't make it - the steamer bringing the invitation was placed in quarantine. (1) Compulsory Vaccination. Opinions of ... ; 55pp; (2) Report of the Royal Commission ... upon the management of the Quarantine Station, North Head, and the Hulk "Faraway"; (xiv),118pp; (3) Second Report ... Quarantine Station ... ; 13pp and folding plan; (4) Instructions to the Assistant Health Officer, stationed at Watson's Bay. 3pp; (5) Quarantine Station, North Head. (Report of Health Officer upon state and conditions ... ; 14pp and five plans, three folding; (6) Report of the Board of Health Upon the Late Epidemic of Small Pox, 1881-1882; 20pp and two large folding plans; (7) Quarantining of Steamship "Gunga"; 52pp; (8) Quarantine of Mail-Steamer "Rome" (Correspondence); 8pp; (9) Board of Health (Attendance of Members of, and Subjects ... ; 2pp; (10) Mortality on Board Immigrant Ships. (Report by Medical Officer ...); 2pp; (11) Management of the Sydney Hospital (Report of Committee of Inquiry into Certain Complaints); 27pp; (12) Hospital Accomodation and Position for the City of Sydney; 10pp and large folding plan; (13) Report of Dr. Clark on the Sanitary Condition of the Public Schools in the City of Sydney, and Suburbs; 16pp; (14) Wood Pavement Board. Report, minutes of proceedings, and appendix; 66pp; (15) The Australasian Sanitary Conference of Sydney ... 1884. Report, minutes of proceedings, and appendix. 70pp and five large folding maps and plans; (16) Ad Interim Report Upon Recent Cases of Small-Pox. 6pp.

Keywords: science medicine public health sanitation vaccination hospitals quarantine c19th Australia Sydney reform progress small-pox