Chapter XL
|PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEMS AND POLICIES
Problems
Improvement in the health of the Micronesians continued to be
a¢ of the principal aims of the administration during the trusteeship
od. The Naval Medical Department had performed an out-
F 3standing and spectacular job during the military government era and
y athe islanders had, for the most part. accepted the health program
+ zWillingly and gratefully.
Cultural obstacles to American standards
f health had largely disappeared by 1947 although there werestill
me people who sought dispensary care only after native medicine
vand witchcraft had failed. Isolation of patients with communicable
F diseases, especially tuberculosis, was difficult because the idea of bacteria seemed mysterious. The belief that illness was caused by evil
} Spirits remained popular and the western concepts of disease origin
4 and transmission, based on the germ theory, were sometimes met with
}Indifference or skepticism.
B ... Medical personnel suspected that they had only touched the surface
e. of the health problem both because factual knowledgeof the type and
F-- AMeidence of disease was not available and because total indigenous
. understanding and acceptance of the program had not been com-
F#pletely achieved. Continued improvementin the health of the people,
Po therefore, depended upon procuring a true picture of the health and
@©. *Mitation situation of the islands, developing further the already
F< established program to meet the evident problems, and obtaining the
“Unqualified cooperation of the inhabitants.
~ Disease statistics and information on the sanitation of the islands
_ Was obtained by the USS WHIDBEY, a medical survey ship which
2 sailed throughout the Trust Territory from the summerof 1948 to the
: Pring of 1951, and in the course ofits cruise, examinedsixty percent of
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