The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1900-07-24
COZ rAor wtrH LEPRo.Y.

The calm ana impartial story told by
out stnv representative ~ his visit TO
the lctcr settlement proves the nbso-
lutte truth Of the statement that sogre-
cation does not segrePate The unfor-
Inmates who have lcprusy are indeed
held captive mt Molokai but there
are no precautions taken 20 keep their
bacill there. when people from un-
infected districts are permitted TO land
ut the lerer village and hug and kiss
their diseased friends. eat and drink
with them and gather in affectionate
family groups. II Is not necessary to
ask why leprosy hangs on In these lsl-
ands. Were chains OF Infection follow
ed up as they were I'm plague times
here the Board Of Health would prob
ably find that the liberties allowed rela-
tives with lerers far gone in the dis
ease account for "A definite percentage
of the new cases.
We are aware of the argument that
ieprosy Is neither infectious nor con-
tngious but who knows that to be a
scientific verify? To be sure many
people mingle with lepers and come
away unscathed but so they do with
bubonlc and cholera and yellow fever
patients. 1t depends upon physical
susceptibility. Two persons do not al
ways catch the same disease though
exposed to II in the same way. Were
il true that leprosy cannot be caught"
like smallpox then three out of four
reasons for the existence of leper set
Element at Molokai go by the board.
But that It can be caught as Father
Damien and hosts of others presum-
ably caught lt-by personal contact
with the victims of the scaly plague
Is a hypothesis so reasonable that nine
out of ten people accept 1t as a matter
of course.
When the segregation law was pass
ed there had been the usual compro
misses for Legislative votes and among |
them were certain relaxations of proper
sanitary rules. Parents could not bear
to be forever parted from their child
rem in this life, husbands from wives
and wives from husbands and so. to get
any kind of segregation at all, II was
thought necessary to permit more or
less social intercourse between the lep-
ers and their kin Under an arbitrary
government such fatal concessions
would not have been thought OF. The
the sight of all save those who would
accept perpetual exile with them and
the agents of the Government having
them in charge. But In this parlia-
mentary country votes had to be look
ed for and as a result we got a half
way segregation law in which the quar-
antlne value is reduced to low figures.
1t is time that the law was made as
strict as those which were enforced in
Honolulu against the cholera and the
bubonic plague. If such a change can
be had the Advertiser does not doubt
that In less than q generation there
will be no more leprosy in Hawaii. The
type we have Is growing milder: i'm
proved sanitation has perhaps decreas-
ed the percentage OF infection; what
remains 10 to see that people In health
are not permitted to come into contact
with those upon whom decay has set
its dreadful seal. The man of Scripture
who prayed to be relieved of 1.-THE body
of this death"-the fostering corpse
which, in those barbaric days was tied
to the person OF the living convict-had
no more cause to lament than have the ,
poor creatures who, all unwittingly,
and deceived perhaps by the specious
plea that leprosy is not infectious. take j,
into their loving arms those whose
bodies, though alive, already bear the 4,
mo ks of putrlfaction and whose
breath comes from the grave. These :
people should be protected against +,
themselves; the communities where ,
they live should be protected against :
such infection as they now invite at =
and in Honolulu itself when .
the newly discovered lepers gather at
the wharf for their last earthly voyage. +,
Otherwise segregation has little else to i.
commend it than the plea of palliatlon q
md the desire to thrust hdeous things ;,
rom common view. >
- - -