Two-Ways Ridicule

Work of Dr. Lambert in the South Seas

rE publication in the “New Yorker” of an article about Dr. Lambert, which has tended to bring into ridi cule the splendid work done by that noted American during 25 years in the South Seas, has induced Mr. J. Nixon Westwood to write to us from San Fran cisco, as follows : — AS a friend and admirer of Dr. Lam bert, I feel very sorry that he should have permitted so many foolish stories to be circulated. I refer particu larly to an article appearing in the “American Mercury” for October, 1938, and called “Fighting Disease in Para dise” by Jerome Beatty. I do not know who Mr. Beatty is, but he is either just a romancer, or else Dr. Lambert gave him a lot of stuff fit for a real “gun tooting” crowd, such as the people of the United States like, and live for.

Some parts of the article in the magazine mentioned are really too ridiculous to be taken seriously, and as I have said, can’t for the life of me be lieve that sober Dr. Lambert even men tioned such things.

This for instance, “a British doctor in Fiji told me (Beatty) only Lambert could have done this job. We British medical men are so overloaded with dignity, we couldn’t have unbent enough to get the confidence of the natives.

Lambert plunged into villages and sold health as vigorously as though he were a peddler with a patent painkiller, cut ting red tape and trampling on conven tion. We would have stopped to think: ‘But what would people say at the club if we go out for six months and live like the natives and talk pidgin English and help them build latrines?’ ”. And so on.

“Another British doctor said, T re member the first time I heard Lambert make a speech. He had called a few Europeans together to talk about latrines and polluted water supply in native quarters in Suva. Most doctors would have made polite suggestions, com mittees would have been appointed and that probably would have ended it.

Lambert got up and said, “This is the blankiest-blank situation I ever saw.

Hundreds are dying. Now you do this and you do that, and do it blanked fast and we’ll get this situation cleaned right up”. We were shocked, breathless—but we got the situation cleaned up.’ ”

There is a lot more, some worse, and

some more so. The sum total is that, althought Dr. Lambert did not go to our tropics until after the Great War, he was able, single-handed, to clean up Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, New Guinea, Niue and our own medical mgn have always given way to him, and up to the date of his arrival every disease known to man was permitted to run wild.

No mention is made of Drs. Fleming Jones, McWilliam, Burke. Strong, Eric Giblin, Leigh Boag, and those men who worked on such places as Lakekamu. In fact, as far as the British medical fra ternity is concerned, these are all just plain self-acknowledged mutts who needed to be exposed by, first, Dr. Lambert, through, two, the clever Jerome Beatty.

This sort of article is nauseating and should not be allowed publicity in a country like the U.S.A. The average man, reading such articles, immediately thinks the B.M.A. just another British brag, and that the medical men are really scared of the ‘bush”. In Beatty’s article, no mention is made of the work done prior to Lambert’s visit, and if, as I have said, Lambert knew Beatty was spinning such

yarns, he should have taken definite steps to stop them.

The last time I met Dr. Lambert was in Fiji about two years ago. I was with Mr. Alport Barker and Dr. Geiger, the C.M.O. of the City of San Francisco. He did mention that the article had caused him some trouble, but he should not have allowed such foolish statements to appear in print. Ridicule is so easily written, but it is not so easily forgotten and the “American Mercury” is a widely read magazine, well-written and fearless —not the place for untrue things detri mental to the British.

I wonder if Dr. Lambert could state that his hardships were ever comparable with those endured by missionaries like Miss Maud Cottingham, or Miss Rowland, or Mrs. Paris.

Brother Plunkett, Director of the Marist Brothers’ School in Apia, for the past three years, recently left Samoa on transfer to Fiji. Brother Raphael, who has spent 16 years in Fiji, will replace him in Samoa.