124 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



First establishment of a pharmacy: Natives their own 

 SURGEONS. — Tlie natives, prior to the transfer of the territory, as wc^ll 

 as the agents and employees of the old Russian company, were com- 

 pelled to do their own doctoring and surgery as hest they knew how, 

 and with the scanty supj)ly of natural and artificial resources at their 

 command. They may be, therefore, truly described as having been 

 helpless in the presence of serious physical ailment. When our Gov- 

 ernment took possession of Alaska, they brought ^vith them, liowever, 

 the first physicians and suj)plies that had ever had lodgment on the 

 Pribilof Islands, and when these officers took their departure with the 

 troops, their services and stores were naturally suggested as desirable 

 of continuance. Accordinglj", the Alaska Commercial Companj", when 

 it took the business control of the islands, 1870-71, promptlj^ estab- 

 lished a doctor and a pharmacy on -each island, and latterly a small 

 hospital has been erected and sustained bj^ it at St. Paul. These 

 physicians are agents of the company, under salary, and are directed 

 to give their time and attention to all illness on either island free of 

 charge, also dispensing needful medicines, etc., gratis. Dr. Otto 

 Cramer, a native of Berlin, was the surgeon on St. Paul during my 

 sojourn there, and I recall his sad death at sea in 1875 with unfeigned 

 regret, for he was a singularly well-read gentleman and an accom- 

 plished physician, musician, and scholarly in liis mind. He was a vic- 

 tim to acute melancholia. Some heavy shadow was hanging from his 

 early life over him which none of us cared to lift. 



Stolid behavior of natives when injured. — Dr. Cramer often 

 said, speaking of the peculiarities of the natives when sick at St. Paul, 

 that they never notified him of tiieir illness until the diseases had 

 usually got so firm hold of the patients as to baffle all medical relief. 

 He complained that thej'^ would let tlie old Shamanistic doctress of the 

 village charm, drug, and weary the sick until death seemed imminent, 

 and then stolidly send for him. "Ochta, mein Gott! too late, too 

 late, such people!" he would usuallj^ conclude his account of this case 

 or that, as it might be. 



Native methods of cooking. — The native cooking is now all done 

 in their houses, on small cast-iron stoves of American pattern and 

 make. In olden times the unavoidable use of fur-seal blubber in culi- 

 nary operations caused the erection, outside of most "barrabaras," 

 of a small sod-walled and low dirt-roofed kitchen, in which the strong- 

 smelling blubber fires were kindled. Indifferent as the native became 

 to smells and smoke in the filthy life of early days upon these islands, 

 yet the acrid, stifling, asthmatic effect of the blubber clouds never 

 failed to j)unish him whenever he attempted to make use of such a 

 fire in his living room. Most of these "cookhnets" or "povarniks"' 

 were in full blast when I first landed at St. Paul, and coming frequently 

 into range of their smoky effluvium I was infinitely annoyed; now, 

 however, the comi^lete substitution of new frame houses for tlie " bar- 

 rabkies" has, I believe, caused a perfect abatement of the nuisance. 



The peoijle of the seal islands indulge in very liberal quantities of 

 boiled seal meat and tea. These staples, together with hard bread or 

 soda crackers, form the routine of their bill of fare as far as cooking 

 goes, varied at wide intervals bj" boiled halibut, stewed or roasted 

 birds, and the queerly-scrambled eggs of the same. The more ancient 

 these oological viands, the better for Aleutian gusto. Some of the 

 women, however, have learned to bake bread and biscuits, but this 

 consumes too much of the scant fuel at tlieir disposal to be a popular 

 or general practice among them. They sit at tables in their houses 



