52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



always prepared for a raid on her kitchen and store-room for bread, 

 soup, sheets and bandages. 



The old-time " medicine-man " was really better than the average 

 white doctor in those days, for, although his treatment was largely sug- 

 gestive, his herbs were harmless, and he did allay some distress which 

 the other aggravated, because he used powerful drugs almost at random 

 and did not attend to his cases intelligently. The native practitioners 

 were at first suspicious of me as a dangerous rival, but we soon became 

 good friends, and they sometimes came frankly to me for advice and 

 even proposed to borrow some of my remedies. 



Of course, even in that early period when the average government 

 doctor feared to risk his life by going freely among the people (though 

 there was no real danger unless he invited it), there were a few who 

 were sincere and partially successful, especially some military surgeons. 



Now that stage of the medical work among the Indians is past, and 

 the agency doctor has no valid excuse for failing to perform his profes- 

 sional duty. It is true that he is poorly paid and too often overworked ; 

 but the equipment is better and there is intelligent supervision. At 

 Pine Ridge, where I labored single-handed, there are now three physi- 

 cians, with a hospital to aid them in their work. To-day there are two 

 hundred physicians, with a head supervisor and a number of specialists, 

 seventy nurses, and eighty field matrons in the Indian service. 



/ 



Some Mistakes and the Eemedies 



Another serious mistake has been made in the poor sanitary equip- 

 ment of Indian schools. Close confinement and long hours of work 

 were for these children of the forest and plains unnatural and trying 

 <at best. Dormitories especially have been shamefully overcrowded, and 

 undesirable pupils, by reason both of disease and bad morals, allowed 

 *to mingle freely with the healthy and innocent. Serious mishaps have 

 occurred which have given some of these schools a bad name ; but I really 

 believe that greater care is being taken at the present time. It was 

 chiefly at an early period of the Indian's advance toward civilization 

 that both mismanagement and adverse circumstance, combined with his 

 own inexperience and ignorance of the new ways, weakened his naturally 

 splendid powers and paved the way for his present physical decline. 

 His mental lethargy and want of ambition under the deadening reserva- 

 tion system has had much to do with the outcome. 



He was in a sense muzzled. He was told: "You are yet a child. 

 You can not teach your own children, nor judge of their education. 

 They must not even use their mother tongue. I will do it all myself. 

 I have got to make you over; meanwhile I will feed and clothe you. 

 I will be your nurse and guardian." 



