Appendix: What was the “smallpox” in New South Wales in 1789?

Summary

The disease that struck the Australian Aborigines in 1789 was undoubtedly new to them, as evidenced by its impact upon them, and it seems unlikely that it had often raged in their continent before. But was it smallpox? Smallpox is a disease that combines virulence and extreme communicability and has no dormant state in humans or any other species – it can only rage, it cannot lurk. Even the virus living in the scabs from the pustules of its victims soon dies; there is nothing like a spore state. So the British must have brought it with them. But they could not have done so – not according to the record and what we know of the disease. There were no active cases of smallpox on board the First Fleet on the high seas, nor in the French ships that were cruising in the waters of New South Wales in 1789. In fact, the written record does not indicate any ship with the disease on board at or near New South Wales in 1788 or 1789. Ordinarily, such evidence, being purely negative, would not be worth much, but smallpox is such a frightful disease, and the Europeans in and around New South Wales at that time were so conscious of what devastation it could wreak, that it would be very odd, indeed, if one or more of them had it and no one thought to mention it in a letter, diary, or report.