LEPROSY IN HAWAII.

Otago Witness, Issue 1874, 21 October 1887, Page 32

LEPROSY IN HAWAII.

How King Kalakau'a Subjects are Decimated— The Observations of a Writer in the Springfield (Mass.) — The Publication on the Fearful Scourge. The chief influences at work in the deterioration of the native race are the loss of its character by intermarriage, and its natural indolence and lack of enterprise ; but hardly secondary to these moral causes is the physical one of leprosy. This terrible disease is much more active in the islands than is generally known, or even suspected. How it was originally introduced no one can say, but there is no doubt that it is the genuine Oriental leprosy, and not, as has often been supposed abroad, a form of the malady peculiar to the Hawaiian group. Leprosy is ' t generally charged to the Chinese, and may, indeed, have been brought by them, and finding peculiarly favourable condition in " the Hawaiian Islands, spread with great rapadity. At present the whole country is affected by it, so that one is never sure that any man or woman one meets in the street is not suffering in incipient or advanced stage, from the disease. A very large percentage of the public revenue is annually spent for the relief of the afflicted classes, but it is probable that very few, relatively, are reached by the efforts that are made. In a country like the Hawaiian Kingdom even this frightful scourge is traded upon by unprincipled politicians, and made to serve their personal ends. When the history of leprosy here is written it will make interesting reading, and open the eyes of many to the abuses which flourish under the present rcr/ime. The chief agency in the treatment of the disease is the leper settlement, most ably , officered by Dr Mauritz, and his assistants, on the island of Molokai, about 70 miles from Oahu, upon whose bristling cliffs should be written Dante's inscription over the mouth of hell — Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! In this desolate and barren place, so rough and precipitous in shore that landing is effected with difficulty, and where the sea beats with such fury that even fishing is impossible, are collected from all the islands those whose case affords no hope of alleviation. Here a town has been built, with wide and pleasant streets and neat houses set about with little plots of tillable ground, and here the unfortunate victims of the disease, to the number of 800 or so, are kept in as uncomfortable a state as possible until death comes to their relief. Cure, there is none; in spite oO the utmost efforts of scientific men, the proper treatment, and even the cause, of leprosy are as little known as in the time of Moses ; all that can be done is to make easy the sufferer's descent to the tomb, alleviate by morphine and other paindeadening drugs, the terrible pangs which usually accompany his end, and lay him away as speedily as possible in the earth, cheated already of half its labour in bringing his body to corruption. The work of death is sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, attended continually by novel and unexpected phenomena, the disease assuming Protean shapes as it pursues its course in different cases. Let but the leprous spot, be it ever so small, appear upon a man, and not all ihe skill of leech shall save him ; his death warrant is signed, and it is only a question of time when in slow or swift succession, his hair fall out; his ears become swollen, pendulous, and monstrous; the membranes of mouth and cartilages of nose are eaten away, and the voice assumes a harsh and rancous tone ; the limbs enlarge and are covered with loathsome scales ; fingers and toes drop off, suppurating sores break out, and all the internal organs become ulcerated and tuberculous. Up to the final stage the pain has generally not been severe, but now great suffering usually ensues, and the victim dies in agonising pangs unless anodynes are generously applied. Details >of the disease are of the most hideous description, and the sight of a leper in advanced stages of the disease is one that will haunt a man of ordinary sensibilities to the end of his life. One would think that the Government of a country aillicted with suah a scourge would spare no efforts to stamp it out — but, in point of fact, there seems to be little real inclination to eradicate it. In theory, the principle of strict isolation is carried out, and every case of sickness that is found, upon examination, to be leprosy, is sent at once to the leper colony at Molokai ; but, in truth, it is probable that the larger iiroportion of aillictqd persons are allowed to keep their condition concealed and become centres from which may spread an area of disease. The lepers in Molokai, also, are permitted to marry and propagate, and a large number of children are born of them. It must be said, however, that the children of leprous parents are not necessarily themselves leprous. The chances are that they will be so, earlier or later, but cases are not infrequent where five or six. children have been born in families where both parents were leprous and yet never developed the disease themselves. Other instances arc known where two or three children would be bom without taint, then a leprous one would appear, after which others would show no contamination. It often happens, too, that one member of a married couple will bo leprous and the others not infected. Nor do the natives have any fear of their afflicted friends but live in the same house, sleep in the same In-il, hnvfj their clothes washed in the vS.-uiie water, «md are always free from leprosy thum-ehes. The disease does not seem to be contagious, at least in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and visitors need have no fear of it, but it is certainly communicable by means whose very obscurity

makes 'them more terrible. Leprosy seems to be on the increase in the islands, and is likely to continue so until the principle of isolation is rigidly enforced, marriages of leprous persons are prohibited, and the' Government sets itself in earnest about the work of making an end of this constant menace to the life of every resident' of the kingdom. It is not natives alone who swell the population of Molokai's sad settlement ; many whites, who have been brought into long contact with the natives, have also succumbed to the disease, among them some of the men who have been most prominent in their efforts to find the cause and cure of this terrible scourge.