As my work went on in Fiji I had to put up a fight for one important drug, the arsenical derivative neosalvarsan, often conveniently called “salvarsan,” although it is Ehrlich’s improvement on his own salvarsan discovery. It is indispensable in the treatment of yaws. On one of my brief trips to the United States I argued the high cost of neosalvarsan with wholesale drug manufacturers who came to a meeting of the American Medical Association. Could the price be cut down if we ordered it in large quantities? I promised that if they would give us a good price we could use $7500 worth a year. When our purchasing agent struck a bargain I don’t think the wholesalers regretted it. We used the order soon after the first shipment, and cabled for more. When we ceased to buy in driblet lots, the cost of neosalvarsan was cut four times, and each price was lower than that set by the Crown Agent in London—he being the gentleman whom the Mother Country appoints to collect a large part of the tax on colonies and dominions. Through the deal our purchasing agent made with American wholesalers natives of the South Pacific were saved more than the Foundation’s expenditure on building programs, health campaigns and my salary.

This sudden attack on the high price of drugs caused a mild sensation in London, which had governed the purchase of arsenicals up to that time. The Crown Agent responsible for disbursements compared our economical prices with those the colony had been paying. The reaction was true to form. Representatives of the Home Government wanted to know, unofficially, if we were in cahoots with some big Yankee chemical firm. At first an attempt was made to discredit my drug; then the price of salvarsan came tobogganing all through the British Empire.

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My reception in official Suva, though polite, was never emotional. There had been a short Rockefeller campaign there in 1917-1918, which had left the Administration markedly unenthusiastic. The Governor, Sir Cecil Hunter Rodwell, was a fine fellow, and I owe much to him and to Sir Maynard Hedstrom, a wealthy merchant who could see much further ahead of his nose than most I met; Hedstrom was with me in all my endeavors.

The Suva Hospital was not stately—a creaky old shack tinkered up somehow. The new War Memorial was finished a few months later when the Medical Department took it over; in spite of its newness it was a makeshift, and so small that it was overcrowded until the building program of 1934. The native nurses, for example, were jammed into an ancient wooden structure, where they had to carry their own firewood and do their own cooking in most primitive style; and these were the girls we must depend upon to raise Fijian standards of living.

There were between twenty-two and twenty-four medical officers whose average brains and conscientiousness were of a high order. I called them “the Old Guard” and was sorry that so many of them were retired soon afterwards; younger ones who replaced many of them had neither the social, educational nor ethical ideals of their predecessors. And it seemed to me that cadets who came out for the civil administration were also a step-down in quality.

There were forty Native Medical Practitioners—natives given a three-year course in simple medicine and surgery. They had no classroom, no charts, only one small book of simple medicine and hygiene, and that was written in Fijian. Teaching paraphernalia was practically nil. These boys attended out-patients, acted as male nurses, attended the doctors on their rounds. Their lectures were given at the hospital by the Chief Medical Officer and the Resident Medical Officer. When these officers spoke Fijian and were interested, the results were good; when they were not interested the formal education was very sketchy.

I studied this system, developed for over thirty years, and wondered if it wasn’t an answer to my prayer for something constructive. Some of these boys, though taught so little surgical practice, developed great ability; it was almost as though their cannibal ancestry had given them a particular flair for human anatomy. One Native Medical Practitioner (N.M.P.) was Sowani, who was lent to the Gilbert Island Colony and made a famous reputation as a surgeon; I shall tell of him in the proper place.

There was a system of native obstetrical nursing as well as a training school for European nurses. The native nurses had lectures from a Fijian with the same educational background as their own. One lecture a week for six months each of two years, then the girls were sent with N.M.P.’s to assist Fijian mothers in confinement. Bed-pan carrying for European probationers, mopping, and doorknob cleaning made up their only other training. They spoke no English.

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