A report to the President of the Board of Health ;

containing photographs of a person suffering from variola discreta, and an account of the case; to which is added a clinical report and diagnosis of the five cases with which the outbreak of small-pox of 1884-5 began.

Thompson, John Ashburton, 1848-1915.

Sydney : Thomas Richards, Govt. Printer, 1886.

Description : 5 p., 11 pl. ; ill., 11 photo. (in portfolio), 1 diag. ; folio.

Photographs : mounted photographs.

Photographer : John Ashburton Thompson (unverified).

Subject : Epidemiology — Variola.

Notes :

• Revised from an 1884 report to the Board of Health »».
• Copies located at NLM, NY Acad. of Med., and Monash Univ.
• Case notes and photo.s of a 47 year old woman with smallpox.
• First epidemiologist of Australia.
• Thompson's writings were important in advancing the theory of animal reservoirs in epidemic diseases and the necessity for public policy to prevent these diseases.
• Index Medicus: 11404841200.

By the courtesy of the Board of Health for New South Wales we have received a neatly bound copy of a series of admirable photographs, twenty-two in number, taken by Dr. Ashburton Thompson. Chief Medical Inspector for the colony, illustrative of the progressive appearance of an average case of variola discreta. The patient, a girl aged eleven years, was unvaccinated. Having been exposed to the contagion of smallpox, she was vaccinated on December 24, 1884, and no sign of probable success appearing she was again vaccinated on December 28. On December 30, marked symptoms of variola were noticed, and, on the evening of December 31, an eruption began to appear on the forehead and forearms. On January 1 the eruption was still scanty. On January 2 it was more copious and better marked, and at 4 p.m.—the 48th hour of eruption—the first two of the series of photographs were taken, one showing the face, the other the thigh. The remaining views of the same parts were taken on the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. 10th, 12th, 15th, and 25th days of eruption, on which latter day the patient was convalescent. As shown by the annexed report of Dr. Ashburton Thompson on the case, to the Hon. C. K. Mackellar, the then principal medical officer, the photographs were taken at the latter's suggestion by the former gentleman, who is a skilled, though amateur photographer, the result being a most interesting and practically useful work. We think that the various public libraries should each obtain a copy, in order that it may be brought more generally under public notice. A single inspection of this work will do more than repeated study of statistics to influence the public mind in favour of the wisdom of preventive action as to the introduction or spread of this disease in the colony. — Australasion Medical Gazette ; vol. v., May 1886 ; pp. 205-206.