Race, Disease and Public Health

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Dr Peter Buck, also known by his Māori name of Te Rangi Hiroa, was concerned about the devastating impact of tuberculosis on Māori communities in New Zealand. Arguing for urgent measures to prevent the spread of the disease, Buck rejected the idea that Māori constituted ‘new soil’ for the tubercle bacillus. ¹ ‘Virgin soil’ theories were prominent in early-twentieth-century discussions about tuberculosis amongst ‘primitive’ peoples, and could discourage public health efforts to combat the disease in indigenous communities. ² To counter fatalism about Māori immunological weakness, Buck insisted that tuberculosis had existed amongst pre-European Māori, its effects controlled by their active, outdoor and sanitary mode of life. Buck believed sanitary reform could therefore arrest the impact of the disease: ‘If we can prove that phthisis is not one of the many gifts of the pakeha [European], we can at all events concentrate our attention upon local conditions without the haunting fear of the “luxuriant growth in new soil” theory.’ ³