The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-07-05

The LETTER Of the surgeon of II. b. Ms ,.
ReDuLe. which appeared in our last, has been re
ceived with the interest and appreciation which Is
IL due, and has had the effect in some degree to
direct public attention 70 subjects the Importance
Of which many have heretofore failed to fully re-
cognize. If that. together with what may here
after follow on the same OF a very similar topic,
shall result IN 20 awakening the minds and d.
recting the energies Of the friends OF the Hawaiian
race that the needed action shall be accom-
plished during the next session of the Legislature,
then we are assured the worthy surgeon of the
Re, Use VIII congratulate himself on being amply
rewarded for the interest he has taken on our be-
half, as will any others who may in any way have
contributed towards the needed end.
In to-day's issue We present Communication
from two other medical gentlemen, experienced in
the profession, both however resident for many
years in our midst, to whose suggestions serious
attention is requested. Such testimony, from
such sources, cannot but be considered Us Of great
value in connection with the subject of the pre-
seryation of the native race. The wretched stream
Of ignorance, vice and disease which has flowed
over these fair islands, has never hitherto been
traced 10 its sources, but whatever time and en-
ergy its evils have evoked have been squaudered
in endeayoring to cure the effect, while ignoring
the cause.
The consumption of ava. to which allusion is
forcibly made by one of our correspondents, has
been more than once referred to IN these columns
as a great evil. The degree to which its frequent
use infiames the blood and predisposes to or ac-
CELEBRATES the approaches of the dreadful leprosy,
might well be made the subject of careful medical
inquiry, the revelations of which would doubtless
be somewhat startling. The vast consumption of
the ava root among the natives, and the immense
number Of 'permits' for Its use that We are to
suppose arc issued by somebody, will be suggested
to reflection by visiting the neighborhOod of the
fsh-lnarket on q Saturday afternoon, when nearly
every person one meets is carrying home 4 bunch
of the precious, evillooking root. Without
paHsing here to consider the repulsiVe mode in
which it is usually prepared for drinking, where
by dire diseases can be and undoubtedly are cou-
municated, the pernicious effects of the constant
use Of the drug are second only to those of opium.
The intOxication from ava ia described to be sim
liar in kind though less in degree to that produced
by the latter narcotic, but ava infames the blood
while it dulls the senses, impairs the e~yesight,
and ruins digestion, and the man who becomes it's
slave erelong finds his skin first peeling off in
white scales and eventually appearing in hideous
blotches. From this to leprosy, when other pre-
d~isposing causes are present, the passage is but
brief.
1.-THE influence of old habits and customs and
the utter lack of education in sanitary matters,
have been and still are powerful causes operating
against the Hawaiians, and helping them on TO
destruction. The two newspapers now printed in
tho languages might be made instrumental in dis
seminating correct information on many matters
Of vital importance in the direction indicated. OF
Bibles aud churches and religious teachers, our
people have no lack, but unfortunately, while the
welfare of their souls (and vi say this in no irreV-
Grant sense) has been looked after with all proper
solicitude, the health of the body, without which
the soul cannot grow and flourish, has been shame
fully neglected. Attention is being directed to
the discussion of sanitary subjects in one of the
native journals,-KO Halraii P0noi for tho pres
ent week has u translation of DIR. Hoggan's letter,
and an editorial article suggested thereby.