168 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



of the deaths among the natives. These condi- 

 tions have been changed for the better within the 

 last few years. School teachers, missionaries, and 

 traveling physicians appointed by the United 

 States government have taught the natives of 

 Alaska hygiene and these have passed on the 

 lesson to their kinsmen of Siberia. Long after 

 my voyage had ended, Captain A. J. Hender- 

 son, of the revenue cutter Thetis and a pioneer 

 judge of Uncle Sam's floating court " in Beh- 

 ring Sea and Arctic Ocean waters, told me of 

 the work he had done in spreading abroad the 

 gospel of health among the Eskimos. 



Finding tuberculosis carrying off the natives 

 by wholesale. Captain Henderson began the 

 first systematic crusade against the disease dur- 

 ing a summer voyage of his vessel in the north. 

 In each village at which the Thetis touched, he 

 took the ship's doctor ashore and had him deliver 

 through an interpreter a lecture on tuberculosis. 

 Though the Eskimos lived an out-door life in 

 summer, they shut themselves up in their igloos 

 in winter, venturing out only when necessity 

 compelled them, and living in a super-heated at- 



