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Show REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN A F F m . XLI physicians. The influence which a physician of intelligence and good judgment sopu acquires over the Indians under his care enables him to render great assistance in the work of eradicating the superstitious prevailing among them. A table compiled from the monthly sanitary reports of the various physicians, showing the number of cases and nature of the diseases treated during the year, will bafound herewith, page 450. Many of the agency physicians recommend the establishme~o~ft hos-pitals at the agencies, where cases can be taken in and treated suc-cessfully, which, if left to the rude care of their friends and relatives and subjected to the exposure incident to living in tepees and rude huts, must, almost of necessity, terminate fatally. Small hospitals could be established at comparatively slight expense to hegin.with, and could then be added to, from time to time, as necessity might require.' An Indian who had been taken into such a hospital and received ratioual treatment and good nursing would not be slow to commnnicate his experience to his friends, and thus lead them to trust in the LLwhite man's medicine:'rather than in the beating of drums, rattling of bbnes, and singing and dancing of the medicine men. Nothing convinces an Indian more quickly or thoroughly than ocular demonstration, and when sstisfied by his own observation and experience that the methods of the white man are better for him than the customs of his fathers he. will soon adopt the former and Abandon the latter. Anything that tends to weaken the hold of ancient superstitions and traditions npon the Indians ought to be taken advantage of, and nothing would yield a more prompt or profitable return in this regard than the establishment of agency hospitals. Some provision of this kind is very neoeesarr for . Indian schools, so that by isolating pupils affected with contagious dis- .- orders it may be possible to prevent the spreading of such diseases, which, in some instances, almost break up schools. CiEIIOi3TMO AND TEE OHIRIOAHUA APACHES. The history of Geronimo and his followers for the past year is too familiar to require repetition here. The Indians have surrendered and are now held as prisoners by the War Department. The whole band of Chiricahna Apaches, numbering between 300 and 400 men, women, and children, have recently, by order of the War Department, been removed to Florida. I trust the effect of this action will be to tran-quilize Indian matters in Arizona and to remove henceforth any appre-hension of distnrbancas by Indians in that Territory. COAL ON THE WHITE MOVNTILIN RESERVATION IN ARIZONA. In referring to this subject in my last annual report, I took the ground that if Oongress should decide to segregate the coal-fields from the reservation, it should provide for the sale of the lands thus segre- |
