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Legislation

Introduction to Vaccination in New Zealand

"Under the 1863 Vaccination Act, every child born in New
Zealand was required to be vaccinated within six months of
their birth. The local Registrars of Births, Deaths and
Marriages acted as Vaccination Inspectors, recording
vaccination details for children born in their district."

From: Gavel & Quill: a guide to court records at National Archives

Smallpox vaccination around the country
by Dr Derek GOW
Reference: New Zealand Doctor 4 Sep 1996 p51

Dr Derek DOW is a honorary research fellow, department of
general practice, University of Auckland. He is a freelance
historian with an interest in the history of medicine.

...smallpox vaccination in NZ began around the time of the
first immigrant ships in 1840...

... the arrival of European settlers in NZ prompted the local
CMS missionaries to begin vaccinating Maori. This activity was
headed by William WILLIAMS, who had completed a surgical
apprenticeship before joining the mission. In April 1845
WILLIAMS recorded fears of smallpox among the Patutahi Maori.
It was a false alarm, but he seized the opportunity to vaccinate
the 'whole population in this quarter'.

The arrival of increasing numbers of medical men accelerated
this process. In 1848 John FITZGERALD, Wellington Hospital's
first medical superintendent, circularised local Maori on the
importance of vaccination. His attempt to educate and protect
was not entirely successful.

In 1849 New Plymouth's colonial surgeon, Peter WILSON, complained
that the indiscreet publication in Maori of a booklet on smallpox
had occasioned near panic among Taranaki Maori, and that local
doctors were swamped with demands for vaccination. Some Maori
even resorted to direct arm to arm inoculation, a practice so
fraught with danger it had recently been banned in England.

Vaccination of North Island Maori seems to have been fairly
common in the late 1840s. Following reports of smallpox in the
East Cape in 1851, William COLENSO, another CMS worker, asked
crown land purchase agent Donald McLEAN for assistance in
obtaining vaccine.

"I have at different times vaccinated a large number," COLENSO
wrote, "but there are still hundreds who have not been done."

In December 1854 the colonial government formalised such
initiatives by establishing a Central Board of Vaccination for
the Aboriginals of New Zealand. In line with past endeavours,
this consisted of clergymen and gentlemen. Of its eight original
members, only two were doctors - Arthur THOMSON of the 58th
Regiment and John DAVIES Colonial Surgeon, medical officer to
Auckland Hospital and local coroner.

The board seems to have been an almost exclusively Auckland
organisation. It was active for about a decade, though little
is known of its work. One of its few recorded actions was to
recommend that "a short treatise on Small Pox and Vaccination
should be printed in the Maori tongue and circulated amongst
them as widely as possible."

Some contemporary observers believed the board had made a
major contribution to Maori health. Arthur THOMSON claimed in
his 1859 Story of New Zealand that two-thirds of the "natives"
had been vaccinated by that date. His boast is impossible to
verify or refute.

The level of enthusiasm for vaccination among European settlers
is equally difficult to quantify. Support appears to have been
lukewarm from the outset, as immigrants realised that smallpox
posed little threat to this most distant of Britain's colonies.

William PURDIE, an early arrival in the new settlement of Otago,
was a vigorous advocate of the procedure. As noted in last
month's column, he was supported by the Rev Thomas BURNS,
nephew of the famed poet.

The lengthy sea voyage from Britain meant that supplies of
vaccine were erratic in these early years. In November 1851
the Otago Witness reported the arrival of fresh matter. Noting
that PURDIE had already used this to good effect on several
children, an important assurance at a time when impure vaccine
caused numerous problems, the Witness urged parents to take
advantage of his offer of free vaccination.

Three weeks later the paper warned that the remarkable absence
of disease in Otago had led many to believe they would be
entirely relieved from the "scourge of sickness". The editorial
stated that failure to vaccinate local children was an act of
folly, verging on insanity, which would ultimately be punished.
Few heeded the warning.

Within two decades, fear of smallpox had been largely excised
from the minds of New Zealanders.

Attempts to boost immunisation rates generally faltered on a
sea of indifference or actual hostility.

In February 1869 the Illustrated New Zealand Herald compared
the threat of smallpox to an invasion by some great naval power,
with smallpox cast as a more terrible and insidious foe than
any battleship.

Predicting that thousands would be slain if the disease reached
New Zealand, the editorial deplored the reactions of the colony's
citizens. New Zealanders were waiting, it lamented, with "a
stoical fatalism that would do credit to Mahometans".

The exasperation and despair of this editorial has been echoed
many times by advocates of immunisation over the past 150 years.