Gold and Typhoid - Two Fevers: Social History of Western Australia, 1891-1900 by Vera Whittington

This book deals with two fevers - gold and typhoid - both of which had marked social effects on Western Australia in the decade from 1891 to 1900. The story of the discovery of gold, the consequent gold rush and the opening of the goldfields has been written in many books as a history of progress. Other authors have told romantic tales of fortunes won and lost in high adventure. Vera Whittington tells of the social consequences of the gold rush and the way in which a small sleepy colony with limited infrastructure and public services tried to cope with a fourfold increase in population. She provides a detailed account of the cost of gold in human suffering and distress.

Hospitals and nursing services were not equipped to handle a widespread outbreak of typhoid. Whittington estimates close to 16,000 cases in ten years.

With painstaking care, information about life on the goldfields and the toll of disease has been collected by Whittington from both documentary and oral sources. The conditions described in contemporary reports by travellers have also been faithfully recounted (Foreward by Paul Hasluck)