Abstract
Analysis of developing colonial sanitary practice during the last quarter of the nineteenth century confirms the interlocking functions of Melbourne and Sydney as commercial sorting-houses and as cultural transmitters of empire. Both roles are highlighted by responses in the two cities to the appearance of smallpox in 1881-2. The smallpox emergencies of 1881-2 demonstrated not only the economic but the cultural hegemony of empire. The appearance of smallpox in Sydney and Melbourne was a severe jolt to the marketplace elite. In mid-June 1881 an editorial leader in the Sydney Daily Telegraph announced the outbreak of ‘the dreadful scourge’ in one of the most thickly populated districts of the inner city. Sanitary arrangements for combating infectious diseases among the general community were just as primitive. The outbreak of smallpox in Sydney found the city with no general Health Act, no co-ordinated public health administration and no infectious diseases hospital.
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