The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-04-08

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medicine to effect relief. Now, gentlemen, what
are you as conssrvators Of the public health GO
ing 10 do ? Are you conteuted to DO as yOur
predecessors have done. calmly 70 fold your
hands aud watch the death agony Of this race.
dying IN the midst of plenty, suffering, groan-
ing, despairing, fading away, with a disease in
troduced here by white men, a disease unknown
to them before white men came here : Are you
cOntented to still aver that the natives won't go
TO white physicians, but prefer the services OF
the ignorant fraudulent kahuHa-a statement dis
proved by the eager crowds who daily dock to
the Dlspensary-Or are you rather going 10 be
up and doing, and with earnest endeavor try 10
do what this race, in the name Of a common
humanity, have q right TO demand ? The dis
ease which is making such inroads here Is not
doing its work in the dark. The remedy Is as
plain as the disease. This thing can only be
met by earnest work. Every medical field oc-
cuPied by the Government must be filled by men
who count not their lives dear unto them, %
but are ever ready to be mp and doing, making
the question whether they are to be paid for
each individual service Il secondary con-
sideration.'
Doctor Fitch then goes an to discuss the ques-
ton of the cure of Ieprosy, describing what may
be accomplished by treatment in the way of
ALlctiOEdliOn duu hcludl ulSSlItIlOu Ol tue LlOSl
grieyous symptoms of the disease, adding that
he is not prepared to believe in actual cure I'M
til lapse of years has shown men growing strong
and healthy and living until they die of mere
old age without return of the disease. He quotes
however the opinions of others including Dr..
Danielsen (who was consulted by our Govern
ment) in favor of the cure of a proportion of
cases admitted to the treatment now i'll use here.
He then DrOceeIS ssNOw having considered
the medical side of this subject, let US. turn to
the administrative. For some years past it has
been the law of the land that all persons declared
lepers, by the word of one man, were to be sent
to the Leper Settlement of Kalawao. This was
supposed to be done without distinction of per-
son or rank. Once declared u leper, the person
is civilly dead, incapable of suing or being sued,
divorced from wife. separated from family, the
mother torn from her nursing babe, children of
tender age taken from their parents, and all
hurried off to n living tomb. And this for what?
If this disease were fully proven to be contagious,
matters would stand on n different basis, but
with the report of the committee sent out to In
dia some years ago declaring the disease not
contagious, and still further with Danielsen de-
claring enforced isolation n relic of barbarism, it
certainly seems to me that. while enforcing the
law Of segregation, every care should be taken
to soften and ameliorate the condition of these
poor sufferers. Yet what are the facts? Grim
inals have far more consideration shown them.
The greatest scoundrel has the privilege of trial
by jury, with a lawyer to defend him and n Judge
to see that a fair and impartial trial il had. But
woe betide the unfortunate sick person, if upon
the dictum of one man, and he not infallible, he
be unfortunate enough to be declared a leper no
hope, no appeal without five minutes warning
off they go. To what? To n comfortable home
where care and skill and medical attention may
at least relieve some OF the horrors of this awful
infection? Far from it. The report of the
Board of Health to the Legislative Assem-? Ply of
1876 shows the bill for drugs for two years to
have been MY dollars and again in 1878 there
was, according to the report, 1927. 95. During
these two years the average number OF patients
at Kalawao was about seven hundred. In other
words the total expenditure of the Government
for medicines and medical stores for these poor
people amounted to just about one cent. per month
for each patient. Yet with these facts standing
out plainly on the face of their own official re-
ports, successive administrations have not hest
tated to assert that everything was being done
for these people that could be reasonably expect
ed or thought of.
Again in tine report of the committee sent up
" NHS A@CBNA ~ VIZ AhoN
Legislature, 1 find it set down that for eleven
out of twelve years no physician had been pro-
vided for the place. Still further, the sheriff of
one of the other islands said that in the dis
charge of his duty he had been obliged to take
children less than five years of age out of their
mothers arms and send them where their friends
might never hear from them again, unless by
accident, to be cared for by strangers, themselves
sufferers-to send them to that noisome lazar
house over whose rock-girt boundaries may well
be hung the awful words Farewell to hope,
all We who enter here"
DIR. Fitch in support of his declaration then
quotes the letter from Mr.. w. o. Smith, pub
lished in the p. G. ADVERTISER some years ago,
and recently reprinted i'll our columns. This
letter. he says, . was published and to this
day remains unanswered and unrefuted, so the
statements therein contained may be considered
correct. In fact, of my own k nowledge 1 can
testify to many similar occurrences; and, as in
this case, these acts were done by the consent of
the Minister of the Interior and the Examiner in
chief of leprosy. No statement that such things
were done by some subordinate can be made.
That such acts of brutal barbarity have been
done under former administrators, and have
been suffered to pass un-nOticed, except in this
one instance, may serve to illustrate better than
words of mine can the well merited horror which
the natives have towards Kalawao. Let mat
tiers be reversed and the wife of some promi-
nent white man be taken by this summary pro-
cess, and such e howl would go up as would
make the high vault of heaven ring with ex-
ecrations."
DR.. Fitch goes on to suggest that experiments
as to the cOntagiousness or otherwise of leprosy
might be tried on condemned criminals.
In speaking of the unchecked spread of
syphilis among the natives, he gives as one
reason the dislike of the native to apply to Gov
eminent physicians for advice and treatment, a
dislike he considers to arise partly from the fear
of being sent to kalawaO, and partly from the
manner in which he believes it to have been the
custom of medical officers of the Government to
treat the native who did not bring a Z" liberal
fee in his hand. On the latter subject he uses
some strong language. He thus proceeds
Your Honorable Board should in my opinion
forbid a Government doctor to charge a native
for medical service, and every doctor should be
required to visit all portions of his district every
geek, and attend faithfully every case present
for treatment"
closes his recommendations with the fol-
lnuA - n..nr