A Yankee doctor in paradise

by S. M. Lambert

Suddenly Mesalume’s reports stopped coming in. What had happened to him? Then a letter from Mr. Paton:—

... Mr. Siller, an Austrian, at South West Bay, Malekula, had blackwater fever. Dr. Mesalume treated him, and thought that he was on the mend. But Mr. Siller died next day. Dr. Mesalume contracted blackwater fever. Mr. Corlette was most kindly and attentive, but Dr. M. died. We are all deeply grieved. He was always so willing and keen to help.... I remember what pride he had in his Medical College, and I think that he would have increased its usefulness.... He earned the respect of the natives, so that the nearest village of Tatau had made a yam garden for him, without pay....

I went to the New Hebrides and found the place where he had died on duty, in a remote corner of the jungle. Mesalume, like all the men of Lau, had a passionate love of home, and this was so far away, so completely lonely.... Wild black faces had stared in at the window, wondering what he was saying in his delirious ramblings. Blackwater fever might have killed him; nobody really knew. I did the sentimental thing, I suppose, when I asked the Condominium Government to mark his grave. They put up a handsome concrete block with some of his history on it and the epitaph, “He Died in a Foreign Country.” Yes, he had given the best he had to save life, and when his time came he had died the death of a lonely dog. I had always thought that something like that would happen to me. But, God, here I am!

After this death we could have got a dozen to go up there and take his place. That’s the Fijian for you.

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Ielu, his Samoan classmate, was another story, just as tragic. When he died on duty Dr. Heiser said it was one of the greatest losses imaginable for the Pacific. Ielu had worked for his own people with the fiery zeal of a priest. Through all his training in the Medical School he sweated his way upward with one ambition: to go home and bring help to his own Samoans. His tall, slender figure was forever bending over books, his luminous brown eyes drinking in the useful facts that would contribute to his future. He was monastic in his self-effacement. He should have been a lonely type, but underneath his detachment there was a warmth which made him popular with his classmates, and he became a leader in student activities.

Well, he went back to Samoa, and I was a bit nervous about what might happen to him. The Mau Rebellion was in full swing, and with his zealous temperament I was afraid that he would be in it up to the ears. Instead of that, he became the bellwether that kept the sane ones in line. He was there as a doctor, and never for a moment did he forget his duty to the Medical Administration. I have one vivid memory of Ielu in action. It was on a Samoan back porch, none too roomy at best, and the patient’s relatives were crowded around the table with the usual prayers and palaver. Dr. Hunt, the C.M.O., was with me to watch the operation, which was for an elephantoid scrotum. With people threatening to jog his elbow, with relatives yammering in his ear, Ielu handled his instruments with concentrated exactitude. When it was over and Ielu was washing up, Dr. Hunt said softly, “I wish I could get as good a job as that in the Apia Hospital.”

In March, 1936, an epidemic of influenza broke out in Upolu and Ielu came down with it. He was always working on the hairline of his strength; and with the emergency of the epidemic he was called from his sickbed to give aid. He put in days of long hours before his exhausted heart gave out. He died in Dr. Pat Monaghan’s arms. The Samoan obituaries did not need to tell me that they had lost a surgeon who was on his way to greatness. A Samoan student, writing about him in our Native Medical Practitioner, told the simple truth when he said, “He died in harness.... He was kind to the human race and all loved him.” The Samoan Administration established the Ielu Kuresa Gold Medal in his memory, and generously marked it For the best Fijian of the year. That was their gratitude to us for giving them Ielu.

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The passing of these brave and devoted men still touches me so deeply that I seldom speak of them. Another one who died is still more tragic to me, for that death was not so long ago. Last summer a letter from Fiji came to me at my California home. It was from Malakai and told me that Vakatawa, who had been my assistant, had committed suicide. I couldn’t understand it. Vakatawa had stood like a rock and worked like a hero in every assignment I had given him. An expert on tuberculosis, he had examined all the chests in the Colos, and his reports were works of art in their scientific accuracy. He had his sense of humor, too. Once I sent him on a survey over a far corner of Viti Levu, and he came back with nothing but a tattered lavalava and his boxes of equipment. It turned out that a fishing party from Mbengga had met him on the coast and stripped him of every rag he had on; they gutted his suitcases, relieved him of five pounds cash, left him naked on the beach. Pretty rough work, but it was an old-time custom when the people of Mbengga met the people of Lau, and vice versa. Vakatawa had fought so hard for his microscope and other scientific items that they decided to let him keep them. Quite unembittered, he had borrowed a lavalava and come home smiling. When I said, “I guess I’ll go out and survey Mbengga myself,” Vakatawa chuckled, “Better not, Doctor. They’ll strip you too, because you’re with me.”