The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-12-19
LEPRoSY IN THE SANDWICH Is
LANDS.

LEPRoSY IN THE SANDWICH IS
LANDS.
A correspondent of the New York
Tribune, writing from Honolulu, gives
an account of his visit to Molokai, the
noted asylum for lepers, from which we
extract the following interesting facts
By law of the kingdom, it is made
the duty of the minister of the interior,
and under him of the board of health,
to arrest every one suspected of leprcsy ;
and If medical examination shows
that he has the disease, to seclude the
leper upon this part of Molokai. The
disease, when it is beyond its very
earliest stage, is held to be incurable.
He who is sent to Molokai, is therefore
adjudged civilly dead. His wife, upon
application to the proper court, is
granted a decree of absolute divorce,
and may marry again; his estate is ad-
ministered upon as though he were
dead. He is incapable of suing or being
sued and his dealings with the world
thereafter are through and with the
board of health alone. In order that
no doubtful cases may be sent to Molo-
kai, there is a hospital at Kalihi, near
Honolulu, where the preliminary ex-
aminations are made, and where DIR.
Trousseau, the physician of the board
of health, retains people about whom
| he is uncertain.
The leper settlement at Molokai was
begun so long as 1866 but the law de-
manding the seclusion of lepers was not
enforced under the late king, who is be-
lie we'd to have been himself a sufferer
70 m this disease, and who, at any rate,
by constantly granting exemptions, dis
couraged the officers of the law. Since
the accession of the present king, how
ever, it has been rigidly enforced, and
it is this which has caused the sudden
and great outcry about leprosy, which
has reached even you in the United
States, and which has caused many
people, it seems, to fear to come to the
islands, as though foreigner would be
liable to catch the disease. You must
understand that the native people have
no fear of the disease. Until the acces-
sion of the present hing lepers were
commonly kept in the houses of their
families, ate, drank, smoked and slept
with their own people, and had their
wounds dressed at home. II the dis
ease were quickly or readily contagious,
it must have spread very rapidly in
such conditions and that it did not
spread greatly or rapidly, is one of the
best proofs that it is not easily trans
mitted. When L remember how, among
the native people, whole family smokes
out of the same pipe, and sleeps to-
gether under the same tapa, 1 am sur
prised that so few have the disease.
And now, you will ask, what does n
leper look like? Well, in the first
ploce, he is not the leper of the Scrip
lures, nor the disease at all like the dis
ease which is said to occur in China.
Indeed, the poor Chinese have been
most bringing this
disease to the islands. With tina first
ship-load of Chinese brought to these
islands came two lepers "white as
snow ;" having that is to say, disease
very different from that which is now
called leprosy here. They were net |
allowed to land, but were sent back in |
the same.ship which brought them out.
The Hawaiin leprosy, on the other |
hand, has been known here for a quar-
ter of q century, and men died of it |
before the first Chinese we're brought |
hither. The name Mai. Pakeh was given /
to it by an accident; a foreigner saying |
to native that he had q disease such |
as they had in China. There are but |
six Chinese in the Molokai leper settle
ment, and there are three white men
there.
The leprosy of the islands is dis
ease of the blood, and not a skin dis
ease. It can be caught only, / am as
sured, by contact of an abraded surface
with the matter of the leprous sore
and doubtless the habit of the people,
of many smoking the same pipe, has
done much to disseminate it. Its first
noticeable signs are a slight puffness
under the eyes, and swelling of the
lobes of the ears. To the practiced
eyes of DIR. Trousseau, these signs were
apparent where / could not perceive
them until he lail his finger on them.
Next follow symptoms which vary great
ly in different individuals; but marked
sign is the retraction of the fingers, so
that the hand comes to resemble a
birds claw. In some cases the face
swells in ridges, leaving deep burrows
between and the ridges are shiny and
without feeling, so that a pin may be
stuck into one without giving pain to
the person. The features are thus hor-
ribly deformed in some cases; 1 saw
two or three young boys Of II who
looked like old men of 60. In some
older men and women, the face was at
first sight revolving and baboon like
say at first sight, for on a second look the
mind and eve redeemed the distorted
features; it was as though the man was
looking out of horrible mask. At a
.ater stage of the disease, these rugous
,wellings break open into fostering
sores; the nose and even the eyes are
plotted out, and the body becomes
outrid.
In other cases the extremities are (
most severely attacked. The fingers, ,
after being drawn in like claws, begin {
20 tester. They do not seem to drop
off, but rather to be absorbed, the nails
the stumps down and act {
lally saw finger-nails on a hand that {
lad no fingers. The nails were on the {
the fingers had all rotted {
away. The same process OF decay goes ,
IN with the toes in some cases the
whole foot had dropped away, and in
many the hands and feet were healed
over, the fingers and toes having drop ,
bed off. But the healing OF the sore is ,
put temporary, the disease presently /
1reaks out again. Emaciation does ,
lot seem to follow. saw very few
VaSJeQ 1OrnbJ anu tuOSO Ohly III Oho
and among the worst cases.
There appears to be an astonishing ten
lcitv of life, and was told they mostly
choke to death, or fall into a fever !
,aused by swallowing the poison of !
heir sores when these attack the nose
md throat. Those diseases give out
oon a sickening odor, and was much
obliged to thoughtful man in the set
lement, who commanded the lepers
vho had gathered together to hear an
.ddress from the doctor, to form to
eeward of us. 1expected to be sick
ned by the hospitals; but these are so
veil kept, and are so easily ventilated
" the help of the constantly blowing /,
rade wind, that the odor was scarcely a.,
,erceptible in them.
An Extraordinary Voyage,