Birmingham age-herald., 1895-09-19
HAWAIPS PEST.
A Theory That Crabs Have Spread Cholera. Confined to Natives as Yet-The
 Disease Increasing.

UiSeaSe increasing. San Francisco, Sept. 13.-Additional ad- vices from Honolulu are to the effect that the attack of cholera has increased. It is still confined almost entirely to the native population. Up to noon of the 5th there had been in all thirty-eight eases and thirty-two deaths in the city, including the previous four cases and three deaths of Chinese in quarantine. All the cases were native Hawaiians, except one white seaman on the United States gunboat Bennington.
 It is probable that infection from the island in some way reached the 1wilei shore. One theory is that crabs pene- trated the bodies buried in the sand, and afterwards crossed to the Iwilei side and were there gathered and eaten.
 A cholera hospital was established at Kakaako on the 29th, near the Marine railway. The natives are mostly aversc
 to going there. Perhaps half of them believe story that the doctors there poison them. I have verified this belief as existing. Their kahunas have long taught them to fear foreign doctors
 Most of the cases are not reported to the authorities until too far advanced for remedy, hence the excessive fatality and the failure to secure timely dlSln-
 lection to prevent spread of the pesti- lence. In most eases death comes from six to eighteen hours after seizure.
 The board of health and a large corps of physicians have been working with energy and efficiency for over three weeks
 to arrest the pestience, and with much success. No cases have occurred for ten days at Iwilei, the district first attacked.
 That section is now out of quarantine.
 Kapunkolo, a section of several acres
 seaward of King street, is now quaran-
 tined with a military patrol. There mas
 been complete embargo of freight ana
 passengers to the other island for two
 weeks.
 The restriction of the disease to the
 natives one-fourth of the 10000 people
 of this city, is a strange phenomenon.
 The quarantine is upon low island or
 thirty acres half a mile west of the har-
 bor. It is separated from the Point or IWlie by half a mile width of Shoal water.
 Careful inquiry disproved report that native woman who died had waded over to Quarantine island and gathered crabs.
 She had only gathered sea moss near Iwiie shore. All the bodies of the Quar- antine patients had been carefully disin- fected. Of the five cases named in the foregoing report as at IWilie all were na- tiVes.
 On the 21st another native, a man from Iwilie was attacked and died that night.
 Two more cases occurred on the 24th.
 One was in Iwilie, native man who is convalescent. The other was a native
 laborer near the government buildings. He died that night, making three deaths in all in the city The cases presented all the symptoms of Asiatic cholera. Careful meteorolog- teal observations were made and the bac- clli were found. The doctors are nearly unanimous in the opinion that it is Asiat- ic cholera.
 For the past eight days no passengers have been allowed to leave for the other islands, although freight is still shipped. Vigorous measures have been employed for the thorough sanitation of the city. hTn cleaning and dis!nfecting under medical direction. An extremely unsanitary con- dition exists in Chinese quarters ire quentiy among Japanese, and less among Hawaiians.
 Although 5000 deaths from cholera have occurred in all Japan during the past two months, Yokohama, where the Bel gic last called, was not rated as an in- fected port The Churches Closed. Owing to the cholera. epidemic the catching and sale of fish on this part of the coast has been prohibited. This has greatly grieved the natives. The old fish
 market has been demolished for sanitary
 reasons. All the crowded tenements en- croaching on the stream are to be de- molshed.
 All the churches were ordered to be closed September 1. The Anglican Bishop Willis denounced the order as 'the most iniquitous and outrageous abuse of pow
  the president of the board of health made a statement of the reasons for the action of the board and the doctors, saying: Ut was for the protection of the native Hawaiians At the Roman Catholic church all dip their fingers in the same container of holy water. Some might do this who were infected or had come with unclean hands from an infected house. Natives whose friends have recently died. upon meeting acquaintances fre- quentiy embrace and walk together. kiss ing and touching noses. This is often done when lepers are being sent away. Among the first cases of cholera which appeared here was that of native woman, who was attacked in the Roman Catholic church Sunday, August IT, | There was much hesitation in voting to prohibit the church services, but it seemed that it should be done for the sake of the Hawaiians who are most ex- posed to contagion, and that it would l not be wise to discriminate" An important letter appears this morn- | ing in the Advertiser from Mrs. Nakulna, a very able half-whtte lady, d high au- therity on Hawaiian customs. She as serts that crabs feast on buried corpses. and were unquestionably the medium of transmitting infection to Iwilei. She also
 warns against danger from Kahuna prac- tices causing infection. and against foul ing of water sources by natives hiding through terror in the heads of the val leyS.
 The Bennington moved from the har- bor to the road on the 31St on account of the infection of the harbor water. Some cases of choleraine followed, but all ta adS are now well. The ship receives daily supplies from shore.