Since the accession of the present king, however, it has been rigidly enforced, and it is this which has caused the sudden and great outcry about leprosy, which has reached even to the United States, and has caused many people, it seems, to fear to come to the Islands, as though a foreigner would be liable to catch the disease.
You must understand that the native people have no fear of the disease.
Until the accession of the present king lepers were commonly kept in the houses of their families, ate, drank, smoked, and slept with their own people, and had their wounds dressed at home.

If the disease were quickly or readily contagious, it must have spread very rapidly in such conditions; and that it did not spread greatly or rapidly is one of the best proofs that it is not easily transmitted.

When I remember how commonly, among the native people, a whole family smokes out of the same pipe, and sleeps together under the same tapa, I am surprised that so few have the disease.
There are at this time eight hundred and four persons, lepers, in the settlement, besides about one hundred non-lepers, who prefer to remain there in their ancient homes.

Since January, 1865, when the first leper was sent here, one thousand one hundred and eighty have been received, of whom seven hundred and fifty-eight were males and four hundred and twenty-two females.

Of this number three hundred and seventy-three have died, namely, two hundred and forty-six males and one hundred and twenty-seven females.