A. A. St. M. (Arthur Albert St. M.) Mouritz

Born in 1861 and deceased in 1943, Arthur Albert St. Maur Mouritz is most often remembered as a British physician rather than as a literary figure alone. He traveled from England to Hawaiʻi in the 1880s and served as a resident physician at the Kalaupapa leprosy settlement on Molokaʻi, an experience that shaped much of his later writing.

Mouritz became known for works on leprosy and on the history of epidemic disease in Hawaiʻi and beyond. His writing reflects the habits of a working doctor: close attention to cases, a strong interest in causes and transmission, and a desire to record events for both professional and general readers.

For listeners today, his books offer more than medical history. They also capture a period when ideas about contagion, colonial travel, and public health were changing quickly, giving his work a distinctive place between memoir, research, and historical record.