Feb 4, 1789 Home Logbook Feb 6, 1789

Bounty Logbook Feb 5, 1789

(188

Remarks in Toahroah Harbour Thursday 5^th. February 1789

Fresh Gales and very Squally W^r. with almost constant Rain. Wind NE & E^t. Therm^r. 77° to 79½°.

Employed as the weather would permit. Three men in the Venereal List. Armourer at the Forge. My Friend Teppahoo the Cheif of Tettahah has sometime past made Oparre his place of residence owing to ill health, and knowing I would render him every service. His complaints however have in some measure been owing to the bad weather from having caught cold, but I have been surprized to find prior to it, he had a Fit, and has been for some Years subject to very violent attacks of them. The Surgeon attends him.

Another Patient who has supplicated our assistance is a youth about 14 years of Age totally rendered incapable of moving from his Home by a deep Decline, and is so far gone, that the Surgeon does not expect him to live a month.

These two Complaints I beleive were not known before to exist among the Society Islands, altho I am told their are many instances to be met with. Scrophulous Patients were I to encourage them would be innumerable. Those the Surgeon has taken in hand are doing well.

When we have here such numerous instances of ulcerous habits, what can be said in favor of a constant Vegetable diet, for I assert that animal Food is so rarely made use of by the general run of the People here that it may be said it is not eat by them at all, and I firmly beleive that the greatest cheifs do not touch it one day out of ten through out the year. Fish however falls generally to the lot of the Cheifs every day, but it is here in very small quantities, and among the inferior order very small indeed, so much so that I have many times seen a peice divided into a dozen parts, each of which was not more than a Square Inch, and with these morsels they would with a quantity of

189)

Breadfruit make their meal with the greatest chearfulness and content.

In this perhaps they are happier than a European, but I do not beleive they have superior blessings with respect to health. We already see them with dreadful Cancers, Consumptions, Fevers, Fits and the Scrophula in a shocking degree, and we may infer many incidental diseases beside. The fertile Country and delightfull Climate of the Society Islands does not therefore exempt its Inhabitants from the attendant miseries of ill health.

Feb 4, 1789 Home Logbook Feb 6, 1789