Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1898 — MEASLES TERRIFIES THEM. [ARTICLE]

MEASLES TERRIFIES THEM.

pacific Islanders Dread the Disease as We Dread Cholera. With the communities of the temperate zone measles is accepted and toler- ( Ated as one of the many indignities connected with Childhood. If a grown man has the fever and the rash he becomes the source of mirth in ethers, and is laughed at by his comrades because he has not yet concluded his infancy. Otft in the Pacific measles is no laugh - ing matter, but is regarded as health officials look upon cholera and the plague, both because of its high degree Of contagiousness and the large percentage of mortality among its victims. More than once it has happened that steamers have been quarantined at Honolulu or Suva or Apia, all because gome baby has had this disorder. In 1874, after the British Government toad annexed the Fiji Islands, a war vessel was detailed to take King Cakoban and a batch of nigh chiefs on an educational cruise which should ahow them the magnitude of the British empire as displayed at Sydney. Un- ’ fortunately the party on its return to Fiji brought the contagion of measles. The pest spread with terrifying rapidity from Island to Island, and attacked all ages. There was only one medical man In the group, and he could not begin to take care of the dangerous cases In Levuka, and as for the hundreds of other Islands away from Ovalau the only thing that could be done was to send out word to the sufferers not to lie in the water. But despite these orders there was the one thing each Fijian felt that he must do when he had measles, and as soon as the rash began to smart and grow hot the patients hurried to the nearest stream or even to the beach and jumped Into the water. Result, what might have been expected; total mortality during the epidemic, 50,0<X); being nearly one in every three of population. Measles found its way into Tonga despite all efforts to safeguard the kingdom. The death rate was just about the same as in Fiji. From Tonga tlio contagion spread tx> Samoa. Its coming had been foreseen and the proper St-;* taken. The native pastors were supplied with medicines and instructed in ill -Jr use. Best of all, every town was placarded with notices telling the people what they must not do.