Fear of smallpox spreads to Port Chalmers

Acclimatising a valuable food fish in Otago waters: the English turbot, 150 of which were...
Acclimatising a valuable food fish in Otago waters: the English turbot, 150 of which were recently liberated between Dunedin and Invercargill. - Otago Witness, 24.5.1916

The dangerousness and loathsomeness of the disease combine to make smallpox an object of dread.

Consequently the fears of the public in respect of the occurrence of the malady among the soldiers who returned by the Willochra cannot, though they may be exaggerated, be regarded as at all surprising.

It is, perhaps, not stating the case too strongly to assert that a genuine feeling of alarm has been created in Port Chalmers by the action of the authorities in permitting a vessel with smallpox cases on board to be moored in close proximity to the centre of the town.

It was an action that is scarcely in accord with the precautions which medical knowledge has usually demanded to avoid the risk of the spread of so serious a scourge. Nor was it at all necessary if ordinary foresight had been exercised.

The justification for placing in wearisome quarantine the 200 odd soldiers, nurses, and others who, returning from Egypt, were within sound and sight of home, lies in the danger which their landing involved to the population on shore.

And what seems to us to have been the lack of judgement on the part of those responsible for selecting the Willochra's moorings must have involved the possibility of nullifying and defeating the object in view.

The usual "authoritative'' announcement has been issued that not the slightest danger is to be apprehended. If this be the case, as we fervently hope it is, it may yet be held that it will be good luck rather than the exercise of judgement and foresight that the community has to thank for it.

•Three years ago 195 turbot were landed by Captain Anderton at the Portobello Fish Hatchery from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

During the whole of that time the greatest care has been taken of the fish, and the tireless energy that has been displayed by Mr G. M. Thomson in connection with their thorough acclimatisation is too well known to need any further reference.

These years of patient industry and watchfulness received their consummation yesterday, when about 150 turbot were liberated in Otago waters to shift for themselves, and, it is hoped, to become fruitful and multiply.

When these fish were landed here the biggest of them was about the size of a half-crown. Now many of them measure up to 18 inches in length, and the great proportion are of a marketable size.

Thirty or 35 have been retained at the hatchery in the expectation that they will spawn there next winter. The fish were dropped somewhere between Dunedin and Invercargill, a sandy bay being probably selected in order that the turbot may be protected as much as possible against their most serious natural enemy - the groper.

- ODT, 18.5.1916.

 


COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ

 

 

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