The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-05-09
Report of the Board of Health.

We have received a copy of the above document,
which was laid before the Assembly May LIST,
and from which we make the following extracts:
You must be informed that the duties of the
Board OF Health with regard to the lepers have
been most arduous and beart-rending. They have
been fulfilled with a stern feeling of responsibility.
without any consideration Of person or rank, and
only in obedience to a necessary law, at the cost
Of much fatigue, annoyance, and even personal
risk. The feelings of the Board are with our un-
fortunate isolated lepers and their families but
what is to be done except trying to make them as
comfortable as circumstances will permit? Have
we not principally to look to the healthier part of
the population, who, Ignorant OF the danger, allow
themselves and their young children to be con-
taminated forever? Seclusion is ordered by law
seclusion is the only way which in olden times, as
we'll as in our own days, has been found to be of
any use in arresting the progress of the disease, or
even IL eradicating it. Seclusion, and strict seclu-
sion, has TO be maintained if you want to save the
balance of the Hawaiian race The Board has
effected this to the best Of its ability. Some more
lepers are known to us about the Islands. As
soon as you will have enabled us to support them.
they will be gathered together and sent TO Molokai
to Join their fellow-sHfereTs. This done, there will
only be now and then a few cases making their
appearance, and the disease will be kept in check,
until time. improvements of habits. diet and gen
eral measures of hygiene put a final stop to it, as
we are in hopes they will.
Notwithstanding the increased number of lepers.
the difficulties of communication, etc., there has
not been one instance of want of food at the settle
ment. and as you will notice in examining the ac-
counts. the price of food per head and per diem
has not exceeded the amount spent by our prede-
cessors. However, complaint is made on Molokai
as well as at Kalihi, that sufficient food is not sup
piled to the patients. The Board can assert that
in a material point of view, these people are better
of, with very few exceptions, than they ever were
in their own bones.
Two of the members of the Board have paid
regular visits to the settlement, and have never
found any dissatisfaction among the people, or any
to their generally most frivolous COM
plants.
The lepers, like other people, are subject to or
binary ailments. These had been hitherto almost
entirely neglected. The physician of the Board.
TO his great sorrow unable to cure their disease.
has paid the greatest attention TO their ordinary
ailments and to the relief of their miserable con-
dition. Mr.. Williamson, late superintendent at
halihi, a white man, and himself a leper, has been
appointed by the Board as overseer of the hospital
and in charge of the medicines. He constantly
receives medicines and instructions from the ply
sician OF the Board, and applies them to the great
satisfaction of ali parties. Meanwhile the Board
Health is receiving constant information from
Ill parts of the world on the treatment of leprosy.
experiments are carried on constantly on patients