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Story: Epidemics

Child with smallpox, 1904

A young girl with spots all over her body sits on a nurse’s knee.

Smallpox was a highly infectious and deadly disease. Sufferers were often thickly covered with large, prominent, fluid-filled spots all over their body and sometimes internally. This girl, who had not been vaccinated, is infected with smallpox. If she survived, she was probably badly scarred for the rest of her life. Presumably the nurse on whose knee she is sitting has been vaccinated.

Using this item

Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Reference: Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, H-31, 1904, p. XVI

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How to cite this page

Geoff Rice, Epidemics – The influenza era, 1890s to 1920s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/27787/child-with-smallpox-1904 (accessed 25 June 2026).

Story by Geoff Rice, published 30 March 2011.

Comments

JC
27 May 2012
As the mortality rate was less than one in three, it should not be assumed that this girl died of smallpox. Her case appears to have been a relatively mild infection.