The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1883-02-20
!" A CHASTITY MoCKBRY."

EDITOK BULLETIN ~ OUT JOUrllai
having on several occasions urged
the necessity of having resident
physician for the lcpers OH Molokai,
l trust you will be willing to publish
the following pertinent extracts from
report of DR.. N. B. Emerson to
the Board of Health. The report in
question was the outcome of visit
of inspection which DR.. Emerson
made to the Lcper Settlement in
March last, and can be found among
the printed documents laid before
the Legislature by the late Ministry.
The doctor says: IS
"To come to the great and i'm
portant question of the sanitary and
medical wants of the lepers at Kala-
wac; these may be summed up in
one sentence, the need of physi-
clan to reside among them, and I
should also add certain number of
nurses. On asking them what were
their troubles, their pilik'ias, they
almost with one voice said that their
one piliki0 was the disease they
bore in their bodies and their one
need was that of physician. Said
one of the most intelligent and
thoughtful among them, himself
great sufferer, 1t is not that we
have any hope or expectation that
any physician can cure us ofleprosy,
but that we wish some doctor to
abide with lis and care for us in the
numerous other maladies which con-
stantly prey upon us. Similar ex-
pressions were made by so many
and repeated in such variety of
forms, that could not but be con-
yinced this was their sincere wish
and represented the sentiments of
the majority. Before leav-
ing this point let me say the Govern
ment has done much for them in
giving them this spacious and fertile
land for their home, and in satisfy
ing so many of their wants, but its
whole duty to this unfortunate class
will not have been done until it shall
have provided for this great want of
the Leper Settlement at Kalawao.
Leprosy is the chief but not the only
disease from which they suffer.
They are specially subject to affec-
tions of the boWe and lungs, to
fevers, dropsics, and other inter-
current maladies; and their whole
bodies to ulcers and purifying sores.
All these require the constant atten-
ton of a physician"
The above statement of the case
by DR.. Emerson is simple common
sense, and must carry conviction to
any mind not blinded by prejudice
or self interest. To pretend that the
wants of some seven hundred per-
sons in the condition above dcscl'ib-
ed can be properly attended to by
any physician spending couple of
days at the Settlement once in a
month or two is, as great an insult
to common sense as it is to human
ity. Yet this is precisely what Dr.
Fitch is now advocating and using
all his influence with the Board of
Health 70 have continued. Speak
ing of the provision which former
administrations had made for the
medical wants Of the people, DR..
Fitch in his published report to the
Board used this language; "Now
to a people just emerging from bar
barism, hardly conscious of their
own necessities, with faint ideas OF
the value of medical treatment, such
work as this is nothing but a g|tdstly
mocheyy." The doctor could hardly
have chosen words in which to des-
cribe more fifty the policy he is
himself now trying to have perpctu.