TYPHOID IN THE HOKIANGA DISTRICT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3933, 27 February 1884, Page 3

TYPHOID IN THE HOKIANGA DISTRICT.

Auckland, This day

Mr J. M. Grace, at tho special request of Mrs Ilardiman, tho late Judge Mining's daughter, interviewed the _ Native Minister yesterday for the purpose of urging the'despatch of medical aid to tho typhoid stricken natives of .Waitapu and Herekino (Hokianga district). Mr Grace pointed out that the natives were neglected, that the disease was attended with great mortality, and that the kaingas attacked would bo completely decimated unless a doctor were speedily sent to their relief. The Native Minister said he had enquired, and was instructed that no medical aid or medicines would be of any avail until a better sanitary 'state of villages was obtained. He also said that the Government had always spent and were now spending large sums on medicines and medical aid for the natives. Mr Grace admitted tlm unsatisfactory sanitation of the ka\nga.s, and attributed it to ignorance.and to the apathy of the bulk of the natives respecting tho disease from which they suffered. He thought the first could be removed by school instruction, and the latter by proper management and the enforcement of sanitary laws. . The Native Minister requested Mr Grace to suggest in writing a scheme by which this could be done, aud meanwhile the resident doctor of Mongonui, who is in the pay of the Government, would be instructed to attend ou the riatives at Waitapu, Pukepoto, and Herikeno.' Mr Grace has since forwarded a feasible scheme for curing the evil referred to. He recommended that the " Laws of Hefalth " should be made a compulsory branch-of instruction in the native schools ; thatexplan«

atory papers in Maori on infectious and contagious diseases should be circulated amongst the teachers and chiefs ; that prizes should be offered yearly for the best drained and most cleanly kuinga or village, the best built, most roomy, and most cleanly whurc, and for new kaintjit.i on healthy sites, and also for the cleanest child on a year's average of attendance; that the ordinary " sanitary laws " should with prudence be enforced against the Maoris ; that a Board of Health for each kainga be nominated or elected, and a Maori sanitary inspector appointed, or in default of those latter provisions that the work mentioned should be done by the Resident Magistrates ; and that a building to serve as a hospital should be erected in every village, half a mile from any wharf. Wellington, This day. In reference to the statement that the Hokianira natives were dying- rapidly of typhoid fever the Government have received the following telegram from the Resident Magistrate at Hokinnga, dated February 20th :—" I returned from Whangape nnd Waitapu this morning. There were a few cases of low fever at TTerekingo, and two have ended fatally. Thero is very little more sickness than in former years at this season, and so long as they live on the lowlands it must continue."