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 845 9005985