The plague carrier

Richard Shumway came to New Zealand with the best intentions - he was a Mormon missionary - instead he was harbouring a killer.
He arrived aboard the steamer Zealandia in Auckland from Vancouver, the guest of honour at a hui for Maori mormons.
He arrived on April 8, 1913, and received a traditional Māori welcome, complete with hongi. He was sweating and sneezing and suspected he had measles - which would have been bad enough, but he didn’t.
He had smallpox, which he caught in Sydney.
We rarely hear about smallpox anymore - it was mostly wiped out worldwide by 1980 making it the only human disease to have been considered eradicated.
But over hundreds of years it has killed well over 500 million in history.
The symptoms included fever, muscle soreness, headache and fatigue in the early stages, making it hard initially to differentiate it from flu and cold. But in time the first lesions appear on the skin, in the mouth, tongue and throat. They would grow and erupt. It had a fatality rate of about 30 percent.
Survivors often had scars all over their body, most noticeably on their faces.
Within days of Shumway arriving it was spreading around the top of the North Island.
By May, headlines were beginning to report scary stories of those infected, although there was also some doctors who thought it was chicken pox. By the time anyone started to take it seriously, those infected had already began spreading it to others.
And by the end of the year 55 had died - all Maori and another 2000 were infected.
A vaccination was available - and a mass programme was set up.
Initially it was considered a Maori disease - a yellow flag was raised by the Public Health Department over the home of a sick person. And many were required to carry a certificate to say they could travel by train only if they had been vaccinated.
Isolation camps were set up and the fear began to spread along with the disease.
By the end of that year it was largely under control, although periodic headlines still scared the public.
Shumway was born on December 20, 1889, in Arizona to Ann Stanifird and Levi Shumway. He ironically survived smallpox and left New Zealand. He died on April 27, 1942 and is buried in the Taylor cemetery, in Navajo County, Arizona.
Photo from Immunize.org.