Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1883-04-07
ERnM THREE SrINnPoIxrs

FROM THREE sTINDPOTNTs.
Gentlemen Of the Board Of Health, stand
up. You have been indicted before the bar Of
public opinion on three counts. There are
charged against you gross incompetence,
criminal negligence, and outrageous betrayal
Of public trust. Your accusers say that will
fully, and in the face Of tried and respected
medical opinion, you have employed as your
chief executive an unknown, previously un-
tried, and distrus,ed enthusiast, that you have
failed to enforce thorough and systematic
search for lepers, and have winked at the lib
erty Of clearly defined cases in the hope Of
making political capital; that you have diverted
the funds at your disposal from the plainly
defined channel Of necessary expenditure. Can
you show''cause why there shall fail to go forth
this popular judgment that the lazaretto of
Kakaako is menace to the health Of Homo
lulu that the system permitting uncured and
thrice contaminated lepers to leave the asylum
and 'mingle with the population is an insul, to
the intelligence !and forbearance of the com
munity that your blunders, gentlemen Of the
Board Of Health, are criminal; that your con.
tinuance in power is public disgrace'
The immoral decalogue Of Satan can not be
kept, invariably. There are times when
mighty sins of omission mus, be scored against
the arch enemy Of men. 1t is then that good
angels sing and bad ones weep. This line of
thought is suggested by examination of some
Of the powers Of evil who masquerades in this
community as President Of the Board of
Health. Mr.. Gibson and Mr.. Gibsons
myrmidons have been laudably active of late in
tracing and aresting lepers. The Characters
tically boastful claim that his administration
has discovered, apprehendcd and segregated
more epers than any previous administration,
in like amount Of time, is not altogether false.
1t is, however, misleading in neglec,ing to ex-
plain the reason for the large showing made.
Those reasons are chiefly as follows When
the present board took the reins, its president
evolved from his eastern imagination a scheme
of treatment, believed to be palliative and an.
nounced to be curative. In response to this
announcement, made in the name Of the
Board OF Health on the authority Of its chief
medical agent, lepers came into Honolulu
from various districts in the kingdom. They
came and were quartered among the inhabitants.
They received treatment at the public dispen-
satoryofthe Board Of Health; and, ingoing to and
fro, mingled with the populace almost as freely
as il restriction never had been contemplated.
All this is recent history, well.known to every
observing and rejecting person in the commun-
ity. Before the advent Of the present board,
with its widely circulated scheme of ameliora.
lairs, and in the recesses Of well.nigh impene-
trable forests. But, under the new regime, they
come forth, in many instances, "to be cured" "
In recalling these facts, the writer makes no
Doctor Fitch. Whether that gentleman be the
pioneer of great discovery, deluded vision.
AIRY, or something vastly worse, it is not the
purpose or the province Of this article to in
lief in the possibility Of cure although its staff
are convinced that cure is possible only when
| treatment is persistent, continuous and made
under the best possible conditions. But the
safety of society in genefal demands that rigid
segregation shall be one of those conditions.
Public dispensary treatment of notorious lepers
is condition Of cure which perils the entire
community in which it is carried on. That
this belief was shared by the people of Homo
lulu, almost as unit, was what made the ad
verse criticism Of the "opposition press " SC
potent for reform. The community believed
that the President Of the Board Of Health was
making political capital by encouraging the
natives to trust in new-fangled scheme o
cure; by relaxing the search for pronounced
lePers and by encouraging the tacit under
standing that they should not be sent to Molo
kai. The community, recognizing its DANCE,
was not slow to express its indignation. TIL.
Opposition PRESS" though somewhat in ad
vance of the popular outcry, was SO well sec
onded by the intelligent and the unselish tha
its words carried conviction to all-even to tn,
administration. To save itself from undoubtet
ruin, the Board Of Health began to collec
lepers. The recent shipments to Molokai hav,
been late fruits Of the administration tard,
recognition Of the peoples rights. When nc
leper remains within the vicinage Of the me
tropolis we shall all breathe more freely. Ir
the meanwhile let the good that has beer
wrung from an unwilling public service b,
fully acknowledged.