RICHARD OLIVER

Sometime in 1872 Dr. Oliver arrived in Honolulu, and in October opened an office at Fort and King streets. Prior to coming to the Islands, he had been a surgeon in the British Army. In April, 1873, he was appointed government physician for the Island of Hawaii and served both the Kona and Kau districts. While he was in Kau, Dr. Oliver and Governor A.S. Cleghorn were partners in a sugar plantation. Dr. Oliver ran the plantation, but three successive dry seasons nearly bankrupted the project, and the doctor borrowed $75,000 from the Governor. Some of the loan he managed to repay by assigning his insurance policies to Mr. Cleghorn, but after his death he still owed $40,000 and left no estate.

Dr. Oliver married a Hawaiian lady whose first name was Hoopii, but whose last name is not known, on July 11, 1888, at Kau. One son, Richard Napahili, was born to the doctor and his wife.

In 1889 he moved to Honolulu and for a few months was in private practice. Charles N. Spencer, Minister of the Interior, was a personal friend of the doctor. In 1890 Dr. Samuel Tucker, who had an outstanding record as superintendent of the Insane Asylum, was dismissed by Mr. Spencer and the position offered to Dr. Oliver. When it became known that Mr. Spencer intended to remove Dr. Tucker and appoint his friend, the "Advertiser" led the fight against Dr. Oliver, accusing him of drunkenness and neglect of his professional duties as a government physician. One article went so far as to remark that he would make a better inmate than superintendent. Although Mr. Spencer defended Dr. Oliver saying that he had known him for 16 years and he was a gentleman and a competent physician, his appointment was hotly contested. Nevertheless, Dr. Oliver was appointed superintendent in October, 1890. In that same month Dr. Oliver sued the "Advertiser" for libel and asked $30,000 damages; the case hung fire for more than a year but was finally striken from the calendar.

In 1892 Dr. Oliver applied for and was given the position of physician at the Leper Settlement, effective June first, and carrying a salary of $250 a month. The appointment was coupled with a warning from the Board of Health that on receipt of any well grounded complaint that he had again resumed his intemperate habit he would be discharged. Seemingly, all went well until 1902 when a Board of Investigation, consisting of Dr. William L. Moore, Dr. John S.B. Pratt, and Mr. Edmund P. Dole, was named by the Board of Health to report on conditions at Kalaupapa. Their report, dated April 14, 1902, was highly critical of Dr. Oliver's work, stating that he had shirked his professional duties, delegating them to a patient with no medical training, and that he had kept no data worth mentioning. Although resolutions by both white and native patients in favor of Dr. Oliver were received by the Board of Health, he was asked to resign. In May, 1902, he returned to Honolulu.

To get a different appraisal of Dr. Oliver's years at Kalaupapa the following is quoted from Dr. Arthur Mouritz's work on leprosy, "The Path of the Destroyer": "Dr. Oliver's long contact with leprosy in Kona and Kau, and later at Molokai, where he did some experimental work, had convinced him that the inoculability of leprosy had yet to be proven. He was however, an advocate of non-contagion, but my persistent and insidious proselytising won him over to the fold of contagion. The last ten years of his life, spent at the Leper Settlement, added largely to his knowledge of the disease. The copious notes, memoranda and other data on leprosy, which he had accumulated, he had intended to publish; but his last illness and subsequent death prevented this. Whatever books and papers the Doctor possessed were speedily lost or destroyed soon after his death, which occurred three months after he had resigned his office at the Leper Settlement."

Dr. Oliver died in Waikiki on August 12, at the age of 63. He was a member of the Hawaiian Medical Society.

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