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Show HRDLICKA] TUBERCULOSIS AMONG CERTAIN INDIAN TRIBES 15 catching them by means of seines in the river, which is partitioned for this purpose among the various families. They catch also an abundance of smelt in the surf about the mouth of the river. These are taken with a hand seine, fastened to a small pole, the Indians wading barelegged into the cold surf and getting wet and chilled. Most of the fish caught, particularly the salmon, are readily sold at fair prices. The people clear annually from several hundred to more than a thousand dollars per family for the salmon alone. Considerable quantities of smelt are also sold. With the money thus obtained the people buy a portion of their food, their house furnishings, and not infrequently luxuries ( gramophones for example). No cows are kept in the tribe, but all have wagons and the necessary horses. The women, besides being occupied with their housework, make many decorated baskets, which are sold to tourists. As the demand for these is always greater than the supply, they derive from this source an important addition " to their incomes. ( PL 12.) ^ The food of the Quinaielt consists principally of fresh, dnefl, salt, and smoked fish. No evidence of actual want was seen in any of the houses, but there is more or less irregularity about meals, which are not properly prepared. Salt fish seen on some tables smelt so bad that one unaccustomed to such diet would be unable to eat it. Remnants of food, some of which are to be utilized at the next meal, are exposed for a long time on the table, regardless of the flies. In every house the members of the family, including the sick, expectorate freely on the floor, only exceptionally using a tin can for the purpose. The flies feed very largely on the sputum, and there is certainly a great deal of infection carried by them to the food left on the table. This feature undoubtedly has a bearing on the morbidity of the people. As in their houses, so also in their persons- they are deficient in cleanliness without being actually filthy. They have apparently only the most elementary ideas of hygiene. The sick are not isolated in any way, and consumptives live in the midst of their families and work as long as they can. A woman, far advanced in the disease, coughing and expectorating very frequently, was seen in one of the houses making baskets for tourists, and doubtless this was not a very exceptional case. As their manner of making these baskets requires the wetting of the fibers in the mouth, and as there is no subsequent disinfection of the basket when finished, doubtless not a few of those sold to tourists carry abundant and dangerous infection. The treatment of the sick in this tribe is very defective. The tribe being small and isolated, there is no agency physician, and no other white physician within a distance of many miles. As a result, medical help depends very largely upon the abilities and supplies of the resident teacher and of the two or three native medicine- men. Under such circumstances but little can be done against the spread of tuberculosis. |