THE department of the physician has always been a discouraging one. The government, for twenty-five years, has furnished a physician free, and yet it is difficult to induce the Indians to rely on him. There are three reasons for this: (1) The natural superstition an Indian has about sickness. This has been quite fully discussed under the head of native religion. (2) The Indian doctor does not like to have his business interfered with by any one. It is a source of money and influence to him, and he often uses his influence, which is great among the Indians, to prevent the use of medical remedies. (3) If a medicine given by the physician does not cure in a few doses, or, at least, in two or three days, they think it is not strong, or it is good for nothing—so often when medicine is given, with directions how to use it, it is left untouched or thrown away. When using medicine they often employ an Indian doctor, and his practices often kill all the good effects of medicine, so that sometimes the physicians have felt that, when Indian doctors were employed, it was almost useless for them to do any thing.

At the same time there have been some things which have aided our methods very materially. Under the head of native religion, two cases have been given, where it seemed to the Indians as if their mode was true. This has occasionally been the effect with older people. But with young children, too young to go to school, the opposite has been true. Infants have continually died. Their mortality has been very great, when they lived at home, where they could have all the Indian doctors they wanted with no one to interfere. The medicine-men have been especially unfortunate in losing their own children. One Indian doctor has buried twelve and has only three left. Another has buried four and has one left. And others have lost theirs in like proportion. On the other hand, in the school, where we could have more control over them, both as to observing the laws of health and the use of medicine, when they were sick there have been very few deaths. Only five children in ten years have died in school, or been taken fatally sick while there, while the attendance has been from twenty-five to forty.

During November and December, 1881, we passed through a terrible sickness. It seemed to be a combination of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, and chicken-pox, about which the physician knew almost nothing. It was a new hybrid disease, as we afterward learned. The cases were mostly in the school and in the white families, there being comparatively few among the outside Indians. There were sixty cases in five weeks, an average of two new ones every day. At one time every responsible person in the school was down with it. A number of the children, while all the physician’s family, himself included, had it, and one of them lay dead. Five persons died with it, but not one of them was a scholar. There were then twenty-four scholars, and all but three had it. Nineteen outside Indians had it, of whom three died. The rest, who were sick and died, belonged to the white families and the Indian apprentices and employees. The favor which was shown to the school in saving their lives was of great value to it.

And now the older Indians are gaining more and more confidence in the physician, slowly but steadily, some within a year having said that they will never have an Indian doctor again. In the winter of 1883-84, four Indian children died, and not an Indian doctor was called. In one case the parents had just buried one, and another was fatally sick. The parents came to me and said: “If you can tell us what medicine will cure the child, we will go to Olympia and get it (thirty miles distant). We do not care for the expense, we do not care if it shall cost fifty dollars, if you will only tell us what will cure it.” The child died, but they had no Indian doctor, although its grandfather strongly urged the calling of one. After the death of these two children, the family went to live with an aunt of the mother’s, where they remained about five months. At that time a child of this aunt was sick, and an Indian doctor was called, whereupon the bereaved family left the house, because they did not wish to remain in a house where such practices were countenanced, even if those doing so were kind relations.