Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/19

Rh themselves much with such matters; and what they did publish had reference chiefly to their own doings. Mariner has told us much, but nothing about leprosy. Even Vason, with all his opportunities, never refers to it. John Williams does not mention it, and pays so little attention to a question of medical import, that while describing in vivid terms the ravages of an epidemic disorder which was decimating the Raratongan people when he visited their island in 1830, he does not offer even the slightest hint as to what the name or the nature of the disease was. His biographer is equally reticent in referring to the same incident.

Ellis makes no mention of leprosy, but has printed several sentences which indicate that he was totally ignorant of medical science.

Moerenhout makes first of all a slight allusion to it, referring to the Eastern Polynesians of the Society and adjoining Islands, and says: "Les principales maladies dont ils étaient affligés étaient des maladies cutanées, l'éléphantiasis en particulier, et toutes espèces de boutons, abcès, furoncles, ulcères, &c., la lèpre même en quelques îles." He then proceeds to describe the principal diseases under their native names and to draw comparisons between them and those defined in Europe. Under the term Hobi (vol. ii. p. 156) he writes: "C'était la plus horrible de toutes les maladies auxquelles ils étaient sujets. La chair devient d'abord dure et insensible, puis il s'y manifeste des tâches noires et ternes; et, bientôt, tous leurs os sont attaqués, particulièrement ceux des mains, des pieds et de la figure. La chair se dessèche, les doigts des pieds et des mains