THE PRESENT STATUS OF LEPROSY IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

By some, leprosy is supposed to have been introduced into the Hawaiian Islands by the Chinese, many of whom settled there about the middle of the nineteenth century. The reason for this belief rests on the fact that the first name by which the disease as a distinct entity was known in the Islands was mai pake , meaning Chinese disease. Wayson 1 and other leprologists who have lived long on the Islands, as well as others who have recorded earlier observations, do not share this view, but believe that the disease has existed from a more remote period and was probably introduced by sailors or the roving inhabitants of the islands of the South Seas, where from the earliest times it has been endemic. The missionaries who came here in 1820 reported that some of the natives were afflicted with what they called scrofula, "which was not only frequently met