PITCAIRN ISLANDERS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 14

PITCAIRN ISLANDERS

■rfrees AiROoiatios.)

Need of Educational Facilities

FREEDOM FROM DISEASE

(By 'l'elegrsyph-

WHANGAREI, Last Night. Interesting comments on tho history, mode of lif e ' and health of the Pitcairn Islanders were made by Dr. D. Cook, medical officer of health in Northland, who has returned after spending five weeks investigating the health of the inhabitants at the request of the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. The doctor's conclusion is that the most pressing need is the provision of sound educational facilities based on true appreciation of the needs of the inhabitants. While the climate was good and the soil better than the average, he said, considerable physieal effort was needed to wrest a living by the old meth* ods of agriculture, The original stock had been good samples of pieked Engljsh sailors and healthy Tahitian women, and the progeny were strong and vigorous. This combination of excellent, vigorous stock in a good environment from which living could be wrested only by continuous activity had produced a people lithe in build but strong and free from disease. The teeth only were bad, particularly those in che front of the upper jaw. This had been attributed to in-breeding, but Dr. Cook's opinion was that a more probable cause was a deficient dietary. There appeared, he said, to be a lack of relative animal food, with an excess of starehy food, There was no milk in the diet. "Much has been said on the subjeet of oegeneration from in-breeding," Dr. Cook said, "but th'e islanders eompare very favourably with any race at the present time. Mentally there is no degeneracy, and tlje inteliigence pf the average islander is good. There is, lirwever, a eultural decline as the result oi' inadequate schooling, and many young people make little use of -the KngUsh language, using a dialeet uninielligibie to tne visitor."