LIFE AMONG LEPERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19141, 6 October 1925, Page 10

LIFE AMONG LEPERS.

" LONELY ISLE OF MOLOKAI." TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' SERVICE. PIONEER IN THE WORK. Almost a quarter of a. century in the service of the inmates of Kalaupapa, the "saddest spot on earth," on "the lonely leper isle of Molokai," was completed recently when Mr. John D. McVeigh retired from the post of superintendent of the settlement and assumed a supervisory and advisory position for the leprosy receiving station at Kalihi, Honolulu. Mr. McVeigh has been succeeded as superintendent by Mr. Ralph L. Cooke, former superintendent of the wireless department of the Mutual Telephone Company. Dr. W. J. Goodhue, who has served as physician at the settlement since 1902, has also retired and has been succeeded by Dr. Harold Marshall, who has been at the settlement in Louisiana. Reviewing his service on the small triangular shelf between raging ocean breakers and the virtually impassable windward cliffs of Molokai, which houses the settlement, Mr. McVeigh said recently that the three greatest; changes were the building of a poi factory, the introduction of motion pictures to the colony, and the discovery of the Dean Chaulmoogra oil specific for the treatment of J: he inmates. These provided palatable fooo>, distraction for the mind, and relief and perhaps cure for the body, he said. The Chaulmoogra oil specific is more ettveacious at the Kalihi receiving station, lor its greatest effect is obtained in the early stages of the scourge and Kalaupapa receives only relatively advanced cases. Much Pioneering Work. So highly does Mr. McVeigh regard the Chaulmogra treatment that he predicted the close of the Molokai settlement within twenty years if diseased persons would surrender themselves and receive injections in time. Education and the enlisting of public support for the territory's fight against leprosy are aims to which he intends to devote himseli. "Almost every passenger steamer arriving here from the mainland has some contribution to the tuberculosis sanitariums," Mr. McVeigh commented. "But little is done for the lepers. There it too much of the attitude, 'Oh, a leper; send him to Molokai to die, As the first man who gave his undivided attention to the settlement, Mr. McVeigh was called upon to do a great deal of pioneering work. He interested the inmates in baseball, horse racing and other sports that would help them to forget their condition and bring them to realise that they were not outcasts, but "victims of a certain disease." Describing the patients, Mr. McVeigh said: "They are first rate. They come into my yard to work, but they would never think ov entering my house. They are law-abiding and it is remarkable what little disciplining they need if they are all treated alike. Lepers and the War. "When the United States entered the war I called the lepers together and told them that things might be a, little hard and food short. 'That's all right,' said their spokesman. 'So long as the country is m trouble we'll not complain.'' They invested all they could in war savings" stamps, some buying more than they could afford, hut they never tried to sell the stamps until the war was over." During a Red Gross campaign the settlement raised nearly 1000 dollars, and the lepers wanted to make clothes for the boys in France. 1 explained to them as carefully as I could that we could send nothing because it would not be accepted, but that did not stop them,, and they subscribed money to have clean persons do the work."