The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-01-04

| VI tLeHl, F1dWdltdn women All, superb
horsewomen, dressed gorgeously in the
hold, native riding costume, and DASH
ing about in twos and threes and
groups. In the afternoon Mrs. Lon
don and / stood in the judges stand
and awarded the prizes for horseman-
ship and costume to the pau riders.
All about were the hundreds of lepers,
with wreaths of flowers on heads and
necks and shoulders, loo4ing on and
making merry.a And always. over tho
brows OF hills @and across the grassy
level stretches, appearing and dssap-
pearing, were the groups of men and
women. gaily dressed, on galloping
horses. horses and riders flower be-
decked and flower garlanded, singing
and laughing and riding like the wind.
And as / stood in the judges stand
and looked at all this. there came to
my recollection the lazar house OF
Havana, where / had once beheld some
two hundred lepers, prisoners inside
four restricted walls until they died.
No. there are few thousand places
I wot of in this world over which I
would select Molokai as a place of
permanent residence. In the evening
We went to one of the leper assembly
Nails, where, before a crowded audi
ence. the singing societies contested for
prizes, and where the night wound up
with a dance.
One thing is certain. The leper in
the Settlement is far better off than
the leper who lies in hiding outside.
Such leper is a lonely outcast, liv-
ing in constant fear of discovery and
slowly and surely rotting away. The
action of Ieprosy is not steady II lays
hold of its victim, commits a ravage.
and then lies dormant for an indeter
inmate period. II may not commit
another ravage for five years, or ten
years, or forty years, and the patient
may enjoy uninterrupted good health.
Rarely, however, do these first raw
ages cease of themselves. The skilled
surgeon is required, and the skilled
surgeon cannot be called in for the
leper who is in hiding. For instance,
the first ravage may take the form
of a perforGting ulcer in the sole OF
the foot. When the bone is reached. |
necrosis sets in. If the leper Is in
hiding. he cannot be operated upon.
the necrosis will continue to eat its
way up the bone of the leg, and in
a brief and horrible time that leper
viii die of gangrene or some other |
terrible complication. On the other |
hand. IL that same leper is in Molo- |
kai. the surgeon will operate upon the |
foot, remove the ulcer, cleanse the
bone, and put complete stop to that |
particular rayage OF the disease A
month after the operation the leper
will be out riding horseback, running
to hra
or climbing the giddy sides of the val /,
leys.
The old horrors of leprosy go back TO !
the conditions that obtained before the
days Of antiseptic surgery, and before
the time when physicians like Doctor
Goodhue and Doctor Holman went
to live at the Settlement. Doctor Good
hue il the pioneer surgeon there, and
too much praise cannot be given him
for the noble work he has done l
spent one morning in the operating
room with him, and Of the three oper-
atoms he performed. two were on men.
who had arrived on the
same steamer with me. In each case
the disease had attacked in one spot
only. One man had a perforating ulcer
In the ankle, well advanced, and the
other man was suffering from similar
affection. well advanced, under his
arm. Both cases were well advanced
because the men had been on the out
side and had not been treated In
each case Doctor Goodhue put an i'm
mediate and complete stop TO the
ravage. and in four weeks those two
men will be as well and able bodied
as they ever were in their lives, the
3nIy difference between them and you
or me being that the disease is lying
dormant in their bodies and may at
any future time commit another
-ayage.
Z Leprosy is as old as history. Refer
,nces to II are found in the earliest
written records And yet today prac-
icaHy nothing more Is known about II
han was known then. This much was
Known then-namely, that it was con-
agious and that those afflicted BY it
houId be segregated. The difference
between then and now is that today
he leper is more rigidly segregated
nd more humanely treated. But lep-