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The worst scams during the 1913 smallpox epidemic in Sydney were due to money grabbing quacks and even disreputable, registered doctors.
NSW health authorities were to blame in large measure, because the State had failed to supply enough lymph for vaccinations. After images of chaos at the Town Hall vaccination centre emerged, the situation was taken advantage of by private practitioners.
According to the admittedly sensationalist Truth newspaper, they not only charged exorbitant fees, but when they too ran short of lymph they substituted something else;
‘In quite a number of cases these M.D.’s operated with an innocuous mixture of gylcerine and condensed milk. Having secured the cash of the patients, they impressed upon them that if the lymph did not ‘take’ in a few days, to return and be re-vaccinated. If the patients returned when lymph had been obtained they were properly vaccinated. If they did not return the operator had scooped his free harvest. The scores of cases where wherein vaccinations failed may have been due to the ‘lymph’ used. [i.e. condensed milk!] It is not probable that reputable physicians resorted to this patient-securing take-down. but it is probable the temptation was too great to be resisted by some struggling sawbones.‘ (Truth, Jul 20 1913)
In other cases, although lymph was supplied free to doctors, some charged huge fees. Many people did not want to venture into the city to crowded vaccination centres and instead went to their local physician. It was said that one suburban doctor vaccinated 300 persons in a day, at a charge of half a guinea each. (Information from The Worker, July 17 1913)
A similar story appeared in The Catholic Press, where it was said of rogue medics, ‘They looked to the ill-wind to blow gold into their coffers‘. There were also instances where such little care was taken over the procedure that, ‘…the preventative has been as bad as the disease. What we have witnessed, in short, has been a disgraceful, sordid scramble for money on the part of members of a profession that should put the wellbeing of the public above all else.’
All manner of patent medicines were advertised as smallpox cures and preventives. And look, even a shield for vaccinated arms!
The clergy too used the epidemic for their own ends;
This piece appeared in The Sun (28 July 1913) under the heading;
WICKED SYDNEY
THINGS WORSE THAN SMALLPOX
DEVIL TAKES A TIP FROM DOCTORS
At the Rozelle Methodist Mission Hall last night, Rev. J. Ward Harrison preached to a large congregation a sermon which turned upon the smallpox scare, the insobriety of Rozelle, and wickedness in general. The preacher said there were worse things than smallpox rampant in the city today, and no scare was felt about them. No deaths had occurred yet from smallpox, yet a letter from Archdeacon Boyce had shown that in one month 17 deaths had been reported to the press which had been due, directly or indirectly, to the drink curse. ‘Drink, gambling and impurity, and unblushing Sabbath desecration’, continued Mr Harrison, ‘comprise the true pestilence that walketh in darkness. (The Sun, July 28 1913)
Estate agents ran advertisements promoting homes in ‘healthy, sunlit suburbs outside the city’, avoiding areas where ‘germs and microbes multiply’. Here is the list on offer from one company;
Smallpox dominated life in Sydney for months and the following year residents would face the outbreak of World War One. When peace finally came, so did the Spanish flu epidemic!
NOTE – MOST OF THE INFORMATION FOR THIS PEACE CAME FROM THE WONDERFUL RESOURCE OF TROVE, THE FREE ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPERS.
