The San Francisco call., 1896-02-29
A Fund to Purchase a Japanese
Remedy for the Unfor-
tunateS.
CHINA ANNIE AND HER MUSIC.
The Fifteen Patients That Are Decay.
ing in the Dreary Molokai of
San Francisco.

Several days sgo Supervisor Benjamin
received communication from Frank
| Blndt, q leper now at the Twenty-sixth-
street Hospital, better known as the Pest
house, asking that the celebrated Japanese
remedies be procured for the lepers here.
The writer stated that the medicine was
the discovery of DR.. Goto of Yokohama,
| where 1T was used with great success
IN the treatment of the leper patients
there.
! Several years ago." said Bindt yester-
day, "the son of DIR. Goto, also a physi-
clan, was employed by the Hawaiian
Government at Molokai, where he used
| those remedies with much success. Some
| time ago L was enabled to obtain the
medicine, which helped me wonderfully.
| 1t is from an herb and is used both in
| wardly and with sulphur as a bath.
There is no other article known that will
| benefit a Ieper.
| From my expert ence with the medicine
l find that the discolorations on the body
| will disappear, and the pain and itching
! OF the affected parts will cease. About
| 5000 worth of the remedy would last the
| fifteen lepers here for several years.
| II hope something will be done along
| this line that will help US poor wretches
|
ing DEATH"
Bindt and his brother have been at the
| Pesthouse for nine years. Both of the
| young men are natives of the Hawaiian
Islands. The dreadful plague does not
| show upon them except in the contraction
of the inner cords of the fingers, giving
the hands that clawlike appearance most
| noticed in the leper. e
| Supervisor Benjamin's reply published
in THE CALL of last Tuesday, was that the
| City bad no fund from which to appro-
! pirate money for the remedy. But he was
in full sympathy with the unfortunate
people at the Pesthouse, and would do all
| in his power to raise the needed funds for
the medicine. He stated for publication
that any money sent him for that purpose
| would be used judiciously.
! Yesterday $40 note inclosed with the
request that the sum be used for the
| benefit of the lepers, was received by the
| editor of THE CALL.
| The money was given to j. P. Heating,
steward OF the Pesthouse, who will confer
with Supervisor Benjamin regarding it's
use for the lepers. No name was signed to
| the generous donation, but it is doubtless
a good start in the right direction, and
| any further funds will be placed in the
proper hands.
Fourteen men and one woman are de-
caying in the Molokai of San Francisco.
| They have no medicine and there Is no
treatment for them here. When they get
very bad, as they always do in course of
time, they wrap rags around their fingers,
! legs or arms and go on decaying.
| The place of their living sepuIchre is
| fitting, if not humane, for more dreary
place than the Pesthouse never existed.
| Like other OF San FranciSco's institutions
1t is disgrace, ruin and an eyesore. The
! buildings have seen their best days in
| fact have seen all their days of usefulness
| The rain trickles in through every square
| foot of the roof, and the wind blows where
and when 1t IlSteth through the big cracks
in the walls. Steward Keating keeps the
wards, grounds and the persons of the
| patients clean, lets them have plenty to
eat and all the amusement dying people
can extract from life, but he cannot rule
| the weather nor stay the ruin that is creep
| ing over the place.
| But the condition of the miserable Pest
| house of this City is an old yarn that has
| been told in all It's weary details for years.
| Even Chinawoman Annie, the organette
player of the leper ward has a cheerful
ness that is dreary from its surroundings.
| She laughs when she gropes with her
| leprous fingers among the cylinders for
| an air for her little music machine, and
| she keeps we'll in touch with the melodies
! of the day, and all the money she can get
| from visitors she expends for new song
| cylinders. Her three favorites show her
varied musical taste and she always keeps
| those cylinders where her almost sightless
| eyes and all but-useless hands can find
| them. o
They are: so, Have Signed to Rest
Me" ''The Man in the Moon" and "Sweet
| BY and By" The desire for rest, the
lunar lover and the hope of a future
''fairer than day" do not appeal to China
| Annie. The sound of her wheezy little
organette cheers her, and in its poor
melody she forgets that she is perishing,
and day by day she turns the crank with
her plague-stricken hand and is passing
away with her luckless brothers.
|
Roumania is the highest-taxed country
| in the world.