Two Sides Of

Islands

Medical Service

DR. ROY SCRAGG, Administra tion medical officer in Kavieng, P-NG, has for the past 9 months been treating half a dozen of the 300 lepers at the settlement at Anelaua, New Han over. with a new drug called (ap proximately) Isonrazed. He says re sults are hopeful but that “it is too early to tell yet.”

The drug was obtained in the United Kingdom by the Kavieng Red Cross branch and paid for by local natives—in Christmas 1951, through their co-operatives they collected £lBO for a “treat” for the leprosy patients. Part was spent on Christmas cheer, the rest on the new drug.

The leprosy hospital at Anelaua is in charge of Sister Clematia, a native of Germany who is assisted by four Sisters of Mary and one of the New Guinea natives who were trained in the Central Medical School in Suva.

If Dr. Scragg is moved on else where —and that seems to be the fate of all enthusiastic officials in the P-NG administration —he will leave a monument in Kavieng in the shape of the local baths now betno- built at the left of the town

wharf. About £2OO was provided by the Kavieng Club for materials to build the baths but most of the work of erecting the concrete piles, and the arctic mesh that will make the baths shark-proof, seems to be done by the doctor, with the help of Mr. Hal Evans and one or two other public-spirited citizens who

devote an occasional half holiday to the necessary submarine activities,

Judy Tudor.

Fiji ports handled an all-time record tonnage of cargo in 1952-* 421.000 tons. Previous highest was 367.000 tons in 1948.