As Regards The Fear Of Leprosy Itself, Nowhere In The Settlement
Among Lepers, Or Non-Lepers, Did I See Any Sign Of It.
The chief
horror of leprosy obtains in the minds of those who have never seen
a leper and who do not know anything about the disease.
At the
hotel at Waikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement at my having
the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settlement. On talking with her
I learned that she had been born in Honolulu, had lived there all
her life, and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was more than I
could say of myself in the United States, where the segregation of
lepers is loosely enforced and where I have repeatedly seen lepers
on the streets of large cities.
Leprosy is terrible, there is no getting away from that; but from
what little I know of the disease and its degree of contagiousness,
I would by far prefer to spend the rest of my days in Molokai than
in any tuberculosis sanatorium. In every city and county hospital
for poor people in the United States, or in similar institutions in
other countries, sights as terrible as those in Molokai can be
witnessed, and the sum total of these sights is vastly more
terrible. For that matter, if it were given me to choose between
being compelled to live in Molokai for the rest of my life, or in
the East End of London, the East Side of New York, or the Stockyards
of Chicago, I would select Molokai without debate. I would prefer
one year of life in Molokai to five years of life in the above-
mentioned cesspools of human degradation and misery.
In Molokai the people are happy. I shall never forget the
celebration of the Fourth of July I witnessed there. At six o'clock
in the morning the "horribles" were out, dressed fantastically,
astride horses, mules, and donkeys (their own property), and cutting
capers all over the Settlement. Two brass bands were out as well.
Then there were the pa-u riders, thirty or forty of them, Hawaiian
women all, superb horsewomen dressed gorgeously in the old, native
riding costume, and dashing about in twos and threes and groups. In
the afternoon Charmian and I stood in the judge's stand and awarded
the prizes for horsemanship and costume to the pa-u riders. All
about were the hundreds of lepers, with wreaths of flowers on heads
and necks and shoulders, looking on and making merry. And always,
over the brows of hills and across the grassy level stretches,
appearing and disappearing, were the groups of men and women, gaily
dressed, on galloping horses, horses and riders flower-bedecked and
flower-garlanded, singing, and laughing, and riding like the wind.
And as I stood in the judge's stand and looked at all this, there
came to my recollection the lazar house of Havana, where I had once
beheld some two hundred lepers, prisoners inside four restricted
walls until they died. No, there are a 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 halls, where, before a crowded audience, the singing
societies contested for prizes, and where the night wound up with a
dance. I have seen the Hawaiians living in the slums of Honolulu,
and, having seen them, I can readily understand why the lepers,
brought up from the Settlement for re-examination, shouted one and
all, "Back to Molokai!"
One thing is certain. The leper in the Settlement is far better off
than the leper who lies in hiding outside. Such a leper is a lonely
outcast, living in constant fear of discovery and slowly and surely
rotting away. The action of leprosy is not steady. It lays hold of
its victim, commits a ravage, and then lies dormant for an
indeterminate period. It 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 ravages
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 perforating
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 will die of gangrene or some
other terrible complication. On the other hand, if that same leper
is in Molokai, the surgeon will operate upon the foot, remove the
ulcer, cleanse the bone, and put a complete stop to that particular
ravage of the disease. A month after the operation the leper will
be out riding horseback, running foot races, swimming in the
breakers, or climbing the giddy sides of the valleys for mountain
apples. And as has been stated before, the disease, lying dormant,
may not again attack him for five, ten, or forty years.
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 Dr. Goodhue and Dr. Hollmann went to live at the
Settlement. Dr. Goodhue is the pioneer surgeon there, and too much
praise cannot be given him for the noble work he has done. I spent
one morning in the operating room with him and of the three
operations he performed, two were on men, newcomers, who had arrived
on the same steamer with me. In each case, the disease had attacked
in one spot only. One had a perforating ulcer in the ankle, well
advanced, and the other man was suffering from a similar affliction,
well advanced, under his arm. Both cases were well advanced because
the man had been on the outside and had not been treated.
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