Health and Medical Care

1913   Te Huruhi (Waiheke)

School closed due to skin diseases—`pustular sores' (Native School teacher, BAAA too' 568a)

1914   General (New Zealand)

Decrease in Native School attendance due to smallpox epidemic (Apirt 1914 El)

Paeroa and Thames Valley

Typhoid prevalent; temporary hospital at Paeroa (AJHR 1914 H31)

Mataora Bay

Native School closed, one severe case of skin disease taken to doctor (Church, BAAA Dow 329b)

5.18 Simply to recite the names of the illnesses as they were reported is to listen to a monotonously depressing litany of disease: measles, scarlet fever, consumption and lung disease, 'simple childhood diseases', bronchitis, scrofula with asthma, phthisis, retention of urine, `hamoptysis', pulmonary illness, skin diseases, enteric complaints, Tebris' (fever), pneumonia, fever, typhoid, pneumonia, typhoid, phthisis, tubercular bronchitis, hakihaki, La Grippe, low fever, typhoid, hakihaki, influenza, inflammation of the lungs, syphilis, chicken pox, phthisis, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, influenza, influenza with purging and vomiting, diphtheria, chicken pox, waiakeake, typhoid, measles, whooping cough, measles, typhoid, pustular sores, skin diseases. Many of these illnesses, especially the so-called 'childhood illnesses', were of much greater and frequently fatal severity among Maori, thanks to a lack of acquired and transmitted immunity.

5.19 The character of this list is further reflected in the quarterly reports furnished by the two Native Medical Officers, Drs Payne and Horrell, cited below. Only Payne's first report was printed; it is reproduced here as an appendix. Twenty four of the 77 cases listed by him are classified as 'Tubercular and Pulmonary'; four more are designated `Pertussis' (whooping cough). Enteric diseases and various kinds of skin diseases are frequently reported. There are also a number of surgical cases chiefly caused by accidents. This pattern is repeated in their quarterly reports—pulmonary, enteric and skin diseases make up a regular majority of reported treatments. There is no reason to believe that these illnesses did not continue to be endemic after these two officers were dismissed—that is, from 1888 on—nor that they were not prevalent outside the limited areas covered by their reports.

The state in action: four case studies

5.zo Faced with this situation—constant ill-health, frequent outbreaks of serious disease
leading to many deaths and recurrent crop failures—the state was not entirely inactive.
However, it was only spasmodically active; the level of care provided was little more than
palliative; the coverage was patchy; and financial provision was both meagre and
administered in a penny-pinching manner. Four case studies are offered in support of
these conclusions. The first examines the situation of the native medical officers; the
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