LEPROSY IN THE ISLANDS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 21 September 1938, Page 18

LEPROSY IN THE ISLANDS

MEDICAL OFFICER TO MAKE SEARCH DIFFICULTIES IN MEASLES EPIDEMIC Mill iNOC!i1IOI rCLBG»AM.' AUCKLAND, September 20. Bound for Suva to join a chartered schooner, and visit outlying islands and Samoa, to seek out cases of leprosy, Dr. E. P. Ellison, C.M.G., of the Cook Islands health service, arrived at Auckland by the Matua to-day. This is the fourth systematic combing of the islands for leprosy. The fu was in 1926, the second in 1928, and the third in 1935. The last immediately followed the hurricane, and yielded 35 patients, an unusually high total. It is not expected that the present search will produce so many. The lepers will be left at Suva for transfer to the leper colony. When they know the medical officer and assistants are hunting for them the natives take to the bush, and sometimes have to be taken by force. There is a chance that they become violent, which led 'Dr. Ellison to remark, "I will probably return here in November, if I don't get cracked over the head by one of the lepers.". Dr. Ellison said that the measles epidemic in the Cook Islands was now in its final phase. Nearly 700 cases had been dealt with at Rarotonga, but there were now only about 12 convalescing in the last remaining field hospital. The medical and nursing staff had two months' hard struggle. Superstition and witch doctory had to be combated, also the native attitude to disease. They would get under a tap or into the sea so that the cold water would cool them, thus laying themselves open to complications.