Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1882-09-13
A HORRIBLE DISEASE.
A Visit to the Sandwich Island Leper's Hospital
The Victims lnsensbty to Pain--Hawaii's
Great Danger.
(From the San Francisco CALL

oEOot 00h9Si'
From the San Francisco CALL
In learning something about the dread
full leprosy scourge here, I have accom-
panied DIR. G. l.. Fitch, superintendent
of the leper hospital, and government
resident physician of Honolulu, upon
several dramatically interesting, but not
altogether pleasant, visits. I first went
with him one morning to his official dis
pensary. There any afflicted natives or
any other person may apply to him for
treatment, which is given free. A cot
tage, set back from the street, has been
converted into dispensary, containing
DIR. Fitch's office and operating room, a
waiting-room and prescriptlon-room.
With my mind depressed by the pros
pect of the misery, suffering and disease
I expected to witness there, it was with
something almost like a shock, when,
suddenly entering the dispensary yard,
found that space crowded with natives,
laughing, chatting, skylarking, all want
ing to be treated for some disease-three-
fourths of them leprosy in some stage.
/ entered the operating-r and sat by
DR.. Fitch's side while he consulted with,
prescribed for, or operated upon 256
persons, sixty of them being new cases.
The other cases he previously had I'M
der treatment. In that number there
was one white boy and one Chinaman,
all the others being natives. Of course,
In great many cases the doctor would
simply order the patient, after a few
questions, to present his prescription
bottle to be reflled. At the door of the
room stood native policeman, who adj
mitted one patient at a time. By the
doctors side sat an interpreter, and
near him a clerk, who kept a
record of the cases. A patient en-
tered nodding, smiling, and prominently
displaying a medicine bottle. He had
been there many times before, and knew
what to do. He occupied the seat in
front of the doctor, replied glibly to the
interpreters questions, got his prescrip-
ton, gave aloha to us all, and departed.
The next who entered had never been
there before. He had heard that DR..
Fitch did not send all lepers to the dread
leper settlement, and had come down to
Honolulu from some other island to be
treated for some strange pains. The in
terpreter told him to be seated. He was
smiling pleasantly, yet. thought, looked
from one to the other In the room appeal
ingly. The doctor critically examined
the patients face, wrists, and tongue,
before putting a question through
the interpreter. When two or three
questions were put and answered, DIR.
Fitch turned to me and said in English:
"Poor fellow, he has had leprosy, un-
mistakably, but breads to admit it.
Watch him now." AS the doctor spoke
to nae he made slight motion to the in
terpreter, who held his hand in front,
but not very close, to the patients eyes.
As he did SO, the doctor took the patients
| wrist and quickly jabbed pin into some
spots slightly swollen, and where the
natural dark brown of the skin had as
sumed copperish tinge. The blood
oozed from the tiny wounds, but the
patients eyes, into which I looked,
showed no consciousness of what had
been done.
Then the interpreter held his hand
close to the eyes of the patient, into
whose cheeks, where the same copper
colored swelling appeared, the doctor
again jabbed pin until the blood came.
yet the patient did not vince.
That was test for the well-known
nervous symptom OF leprosy, the insen-
sltiveness to touch and to pain. The
various palsies, of course, manifested
themselves without any such test. The
patient was prescribed for and told to
return In a week. Perhaps he may
never go to the lepef settlement. Per
haps his disease, though it can never be
cured, may be so modified and relieved
that the patient can live out his life
among his own people. He may now,
for DIR. Fitch has induced the govern
ment to establish a branch leper hos
pital in Honolulu, from whence patients
are sometimes allowed to return to their
families, instead of being transported for
life. This directly conflicts with the
law of the kingdom, which provides for
the life transportation to Molokai of all /
lepers. Yet SO violent is the prejudice |
among all natives against going them |
selves or having any friends or relatives
sent to the Molokai settlement that the |
Fitch idea of . branch settlement at
Honolulu was adopted and furthered
even by members of the royal family.
Her royal highness Lilinokalani, sister
to the king and regent during his ab-
sence from the islands, was especially
active in the establishment of this branch
settlement. Although nominaIly this
UrdHCu rs Ou1y temporary HOsplIdl ZOE
lepers before their cases are finally
passed upon by the resident physician
of the queens hospital, DR.. McKibben,
it really amounts to substitute for
Molokai, and as such is greatly popular
with all natives. Then there is pos
sibility of release; escape is very easy;
friends can visit friends conveniently
and daily, and the grave-like isolation of
1 r IL
The result is that, in or about Honolulu,
there are four hundred known lepers,
about one hundred of whom are nomin-
ally confined 10 the branch. The further
result is that all the good work of the
stern law which provided for Molokai is
being undone, and the scourge of lep-
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