The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-09-11

Mr.. EDIToR-One Of your correspondents last
week, asks the questions" Where are we drifting
to ? and what next? The policy indicated by the
Board of Health in their recent action, gives q pecul-
lar force to these questions. That policy seems to be
Just this to protect the " guild " Of physicians, by
invoking the aid of the law and the Police Court
against any one who dares to give or take physic
except on their terms. Thus we are drifting I"
towards a medical oligarchy, the operation of which
will be something like this A member of the fami-
ly is taken sick during the night; there is medicine
in the house, but it is contrary to the rule Of the
Board of Health that any one not in possession Of a
diploma and q license shall prescribe for the sick; a
regular - doctor is sent for; he does not choose to
what then g? Perhaps the sick person
dies-that's all. 1t is not to be supposed that q
community of intelligent foreigners are going to
submit to this state Of things. To use a favorite
expression of one Of the members Of the Board Of
Health-it is &" humbug > to try it on.
1t is hard on the natives, and they feel it. Said
one in my hearing yesterday $40 the members Of
the Board of Health wish to hasten the extinction of
our race? They know we cannot pay the charges Of
the foreign doctors. With perhaps one or two excep-
tons, the haole doctors won't look at US unless they
have the money sure. Many of US don't like to go
to the Hospital, for the ways Of the physician there
don't suit ms. The Board has prosecuted and i'm
prisoned Mohabeer, who did a great deal of good;
they threaten other foreigners who have charitably
prescribed for US and attended on as, that they must
do so no more. What then shall we do? We are
left to our own native kahunas. 1t is said that these
will do US harm and perhaps kill US. Well, we shall
die if We are not doctored, and we shall die if we are
dOctored. So that we are piiikiG, anyway
1t strikes ma that just now there is a battle-an
&c irrepressible conflict - going on between the
medical faculty, represented by the Board Of Health,
and the public. With oil due respect for individuals
comprised in the former, it may with truth be
averred that on no one subject have mankind been so
thoroughly humbugged and fooled as on that of med
icine. "If,'' says a certain writer, I" e look into
the profession Of physic, we shall find q most fOrmi-
dable body of men; the sight Of them is enough to
make a man serious; for we may lay it down as a
maxim, that when a nation abounds in physicians. it
grows thin Of people. Sir William Temple is very
much puzzled to find out a reason why the northern
hive, as he calls it, does not send out such prodigious
swarms, and over-run the world with Goths and
Vandals, as it did formerly; but had that excellent
author observed, that there were no students in
physic among the subjects Of Thor and Wooden, aud
that this science fourishes very much 10 the north at
present, he might have found q better solution for
this difficulty than any Of thoss he has made use Of.
This body Of men, in our own country, may be de-
scribed like the British army in CGesar's time: some
of.them slay in chariots and come on foot. If the
infantry do less execution than the characters, it is
because they cannot be carried SO soon into all quar-
tiers Of the town. and dispatch 80 much business in
so short q time" BOLTS.