1953} 



RITZEXTHALER, CHIPPEWA HEALTH 



217 



FIG. 13 — Ha>T\ard Indian Hospital. 



Besides the local facilities there is a U. S. Government sanitorium at 

 Walker, Minnesota, where tubercular patients are sent for treatment. The 

 few mental cases are sent to the State Hospital for Mental Diseases at 

 Mendota. There is also some patronage of private doctors and dentists in 

 the nearby towns, but these are services which the majority cannot afford. 



Although there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the services 

 and methods of the Government hospital, the majority of the people are not 

 hesitant about utilizing the institution. For a sample five-year period 

 (1933-1938) there was an average of 862 cases admitted per year. They 

 have been fairly well conditioned to the idea of having their births at the 

 hospital with an estimated 85 per cent of the children born there, and only 

 15 per cent handled by Indian midwives. This factor has undoubtedly been 

 important in reducing the rate of infant mortality, but the figure is still high. 

 Some of the older people are still suspicious of the efhcacy of modern 

 medical science, and persuasion is sometimes necessary to get them to enter 

 the hospital, but that the old prejudices are breaking down is attested to by 

 the fact that even medicine men and Mide priests have, on occasion, patron- 

 ized the hospital. This does not mean that native cures are necessarily being 



