HRDLicKAl TUBERCULOSIS AMONG CERTAIN INDIAN TRIBES 15 



catcliino; them hj means of seines in the river, which is partitioned 

 for this purpose among the various famihes. 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 gettmg 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. Consider- 

 able 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. (PI. 12.) 



The food of the Quinaielt consists principally of fresh, dried, 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. Rem- 

 nants 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 certamly 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 peo- 

 ple. 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 ver}^ 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 whetting of the fibers in the mouth, and as there is no subsecpient 

 disinfection of the basket w^hen 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. 



