LEPROSY DYING OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 847, 16 December 1929, Page 16

LEPROSY DYING OUT

PRIEST DISCUSSES PACIFIC SCOURGE POSITION AT MOLOKAI Leprosy is dying out in the islands of the Pacific, according to Father H. Valentin, of Honolulu, who is passing through Auckland on the Niagara after a holiday vis'it to Australia. Father Valentin, who has been in Hawaii for the past 40 years, was born in Belgium and educated in France. When the famous Roman Catholic missionary, Father Damien, died at the island of Molokai in 1889, after 17 years’ wonderful work among the lepers there, Father Valentin was assigned to take his place. He travelled out and took over Father Damien’s belongings for fumigation purposes, for the missionary had died as a result of contracting the disease against which he fought. However, Father Valentin’s plans were changed and he began work in Honolulu, where he has remained for the last 40 years. “Forty years ago there were 1,700 lepers at Molokai,” he told The Sun. “Today that number has been reduced to 650, while 200 lepers at Honolulu— Hawaiians, a few of other races, including Portuguese—are waiting to be transferred. “The disease is dying out, for it no longer spreads rapidly. Leprosy is not contagious and is contracted by inoculation, usually through some skin wound.” He added that two priests, four brothers, and four sisters were stationed permanently on Molokai. Referring to the prosperous industries of Hawaii, Father Valentin said that 95 per cent, of the population was concerned directly or indirectly with the pineapple and sugar industry. Several of the canneries had enormous outputs and one produced 60,000 tins of pineapple an hour during the season. The plantations were worked largely by Japanese, the system being that they secLired the land and were advanced 60 .per cent, of the necessary capital. Three crops of pineapples and sugar were secured every five years.