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.
