Brookings County sentinel. (Brookings, Dakota [S.D.]) 1882-1890, 1882-09-14
A HORRIBLE DISEASE.



waiting-room and pfescription-room
With my mind depressed by the pros
pect of the misery, suffering and disease
L expected to witness there, il was with
something almost like o 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.
/ entere the operating room and sat by
DIR. Fitch. 1e while he consulted with,
prescribed fo., y operated upon 256
persons, sixty OF w. ..s\ ew cases.
The other cases he previously had un-
der treatment. In that number there
was one white boy and one ChiDaman,
all the others being natives. OF course,
in great many cases the doctor would
simply order the patient, after few
questions, to present his prescription
bottle TO be reflled. At the door Of the
room stood native policeman. who ad-
mitted one patient at time. By the
doctors side sat an interpreter. and
near him a clerk, who kept q
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-
tion, gave aloha to us all, and departed.
The next who entered had never oeen
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 scme other island to be
treated for some strange pains. The in
terpreter told him TO he seated. He was
smiling pleasantly, yet, l thought, looked
from one to the other in the room appeal
ingly. The doctor critically examined
the patients face, wrists, and tongue,
before putting question through
the Interpreter. When two or three
questions were put and answered, DIR.
FiCch 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 docio spoke
to me he made slight motion to the iu-
terpreter, who held his hand in front,
but not very close, TO the patients eyes.
As he did 81, the doctor took the patients
wrist and quickly jsbbed pin into some
spots slightly swollen, and where the
natural dark brown of the skiu had as
sumed a copperish tmge. The blood
oozed from the tiny wounds, but the
patients eyes, into which l 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-
sitiveness 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 leper settlement. Per,
| haps his disease, though it can never be
cured, may be so modified and relieved
that the patient can live out mis- 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 theil
families, instead of being transported fol
life. This directly conflicts with the
law of the kingdom, which provides fol
the life transportation to Molokai of a..
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 Al
Honolulu was adopted and furthered
even by members of the royal family
Her royal highness Lilinokaiani, sistel
to the king and regent during his alb
sence from the islands, was especially
active in the establishment OF this branct
settlement. Although nominally thii
branch is only temporary hospital fol
lepers before their cases are finally
passed upon by the resident physician
OF the queens hospital, DR.. McKibben
it really amounts to q substitute foi
Molokai, and as such is greatly popular
with all natives. Then there is q pos
sibility Of release; escape is very easy
friends can visit friends conveniently
and daily, and the grave-like isolation o
Molokai is not part of the system
The result is that, in or about Honolulu
there are four hundred known lepers
about one hundred Of whom are nomin
ally confined in the branch. The further
result is that all the good work Of th,
stern law which provided for Molokai il
being updone, and the scourge OF lep
rosy, instead of being checked as Moloka
would have checked it, is being concen
trated In the most pop ilous settlement
of the islands, where it will grow ant
thrive and spread as it never had {
chance before. Speaking of this nev
departure and experimental DIR. Fitch's
DIR. Emerson, who resided for some tim,
in the Molokai settlement, recently said
Hawaii can not afford to retreat from
the advanced position she has taken Of
this point. The population OF thes
islands is too small TO be trified with an1
risked in wild experiment. There i
danger it will be lost in the process
Due consideration for the welfare of ou
own non-leprous people aud that Of tn
increasing number Of visitors, and thos
who seek homes with us, make it incum
bent upon us to cling to the safe doc
,, trine of contagion, which is also th
plainly taught doctrine Of experience i
other lands. The necessity for isolation
is sad fact. Courage is needed in M
tion, as in patient, to nerve it to tn
dread ordeal Of painful surgical opers
ton. However unwelcome the fact
may be, it becomes US, as true and hon
est men, to meet them squarely, and nc
to imagine we can dodge the force O
their blow hy closing our eyes To th