the less acculturatedislanders to accept change, indefinitely postponed
permanent improvement.
Conclusion
The health program established and expanded by the Navy during
its administration of the islands was successful considering the immensity of the problem and the few years that the program was in
effect. The statistics of treatments, cures, facilities and training are
impressive but no person connected with the program consideredthat
anything but a beginning had been made in eliminating prevalent
diseases and acquainting the inhabitantsof the islands with the basic
reasons for acceptance of American health standards.
Working contrary to the progress of the program were many of the
same difficulties that hindered endeavor in other fields of native administration. The problems of transportation and communication
made satisfactory conduct of medical andsanitation programs on outlying islands always a problem. Lack of laboratory facilities in the
field and nonavailability of skilled nursing limited diagnostic and
therapeutic work. Language difficulties sometimes complicatedtreatmentbecause, as one medical officer commented, “Taking a psychiatric
history throughan interpreter is an unparalleled intellectual: feat.”
The permanent successof the health program for the Trust Territory
depended to a great extent uponits acceptance and continuancebythe
islanders themselves. Fach year the number of people voluntarily
seeking assistance from the administration's health services increased
and the influence of unqualified indigenouspractitioners, the so-called
“witch doctors,” progressively decreased. At no time did the administration attempt by legislation to forbid the practice of traditional
island medicine, but if at any time such practice endangered the
welfare of the people, medical officers resolved the problem through
consultation with local communityofficials. |
A naval medical officer who served in the Marshall Islands noted
that desirable health standards in the islands could be reached only
by progress in an “individual trinity:” education, public demand, and
economy. Education would furnish knowledge of the basic theories
of health and sanitation and result in public demand for the program.
Island economy, which should provide more than subsistence for
health, would include “better housing, clean food and clothing, shoes.
balanced diets, clean water stowage, sanitary waste disposal, immu947
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