Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-07-07
LEPERS pulling
Eleven Supposed Victims From
Molokai Are Free From
Disease.
RESULT OF REORGANIZATION
Had Been Declared Infected and Had
Spent from Two to Twenty
Years i'm Settlement.

Win no talnt OF the disease III then
veins been sent in the past to lifelong
exile at the Molokai leper settlement
in the Ha waian Islands?
These questions have been raised by
the outcome of the re-examination of
eleven persons, each of whom had III
the past been declared leper and had
spent from two To twenty years in the
settlement. The denominations We're
made by the most eminent patholo-
giSts aud bacteriologiSts in the islands
One of them was DR.. Walter Brincker-
hoff. who WAS sent to Honolulu by
the surgeon general of the United
States three years ago to study the
disease and if possible to discover a
cure.
Nineteen more persons from the set
Element are to be brought TO Honolulu
to he re-examined to determine wheth
er they are now leperS.
These re-examinations were made
owing to Il visit to the settlement of a
committee of the Legislature of Ha-
wall when last in session. This com
mittee found several people there who
showed outward signs of the dis
ease. ard most of them insisted that
they were not lcpers. After this visit
| Senator Frank Harvey introduced a
joint resolution requesting the board
of health to bring some thirty persons
named in the resolution from the set
Element to Honolulu for the purpose Of
being rc-examined by three physicians,
one TO be chosen by the person him
self. another by the board of health
and the third by these two. The
board of health brought eleven of the
thirty to Honolulu. that being as mary
as there were accommodations for ut
| one time at the leper receiving hos
pital at Kalihi, near Honolulu. The
other nineteen will be taken to Hon
olulu as fast as there is room for
them.
That every one of the first eleven
| brought should be declared not lcpcr
is considered remarkable, for, while
some of them were sent to Molo!-pi
years ago, before the meteorological
test was In use. several did not so
there until it had been adopted They
under the microscope that their sys-
TENS contained the bacillus of leprosy.
Under reorganization the microscope
fails to reveal the presence of the ba-
cillus. ''f
This has given renewed hope that a
cure for the disease may yet he found
either by accident or by research. APP
parently since these eleven went TO
the settlement there has been some
thing either in their treatment or in
their dietary or in both which has en-
abled the system to resist the attacks
of the bacillus and TO expel 1t finally
from the system or else nature herself
has arrested the disease.
Believe They Arc Not Free.
On the other hand, there are among
the physicians of the territory some
who believe that these persons are not
really free from leprosy: that the dis
ease still turks in their tissue, possibly
to break out again. This opinion is
based on the mysterious and elusive
character of the disease which has
bafiied science. Not only has 1t found
no cure, but it cannot even describe
| the character and progress of the dis
| ease so as to fit all cases. II is claimed
| that even among these eleven persons
there are some who still bear the APP
pearance of lepers, an appearance
| which it is impossible to describe, but
which is easily recognizable by those
who have had much to do with lepers.
However. as all eleven of these per-
sons stood the meteorological test
| which is now considered infallible. all
| OF them have been released. They
| will be kept under an unobtrusive sur
| VIGILANCE to meet the possibility that
| the disease may again develop in them.
! 1t seems. however. hardly likely that
it will, especially in view of the fact
| that of seventeen released from the
settlement in 1902 on similar exam
| nation none of them has ever devcl-
| oped evidences of the disease.
OF the eleven persons released ten
| were Hawaiian men and boys and one
was a Portuguese woman. 1t is one
| of the strange contradictions OF human
| habit and temperament that of these
eleven released from lifelong exile
NISht utNC BtiillOhNu thN IVA "a
| of health to be allowed to return to
| the settlement and live. Familiarity
| with the disease has so hardened them
| to its horrors that they seem no longer
| to have any fear of it. and the COM
| Portable. easy life led there by the
| lepers. supported by the government
and not confined within Enclosures and
with No indirotiOns of restraint pycenf
| those of illimitable sea and unscalable
mountains. appeals strongly rs against
| the outlook of wrestling a scanty sup
port by hard labor.-HonoIulu HawaiD
| Special Cor. New York Post.
Better Net Take Whisky.
The next time you have sudden
chill-you or any of the folks at
home-don't bother with whiskey or
~, raIy ,fnlxl ty 70,