Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Unidentified dead baby

Unidentified dead baby

1870-1875
Glass photonegative

This photograph of a dead child, with a wreath of dianthus and surrounded by eucalypt leaves and roses, is a reminder of the high mortality of children in the nineteenth century. In the 1870s, about a quarter of all children in Australia died before five years of age, usually from diarrhoea and intestinal diseases.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1872

The question of water supply is all-important at Hill End... Judging from what I have seen and heard, I should conclude that the climate of these mountain ranges is singularly healthy; but a large population, dependent for its supply of water on stagnant pools, cannot expect to escape the scourge of dysentery, and indeed all the other “ills to which flesh is heir.” [‘A trip to Hill End’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1872, p7]