The CHEM AWA AMERICAN
Page 2
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CHEMAWA^AMERICAN
Published Weekly at the XT. S. Indian School, Chemawa
Oregon. Address all communications to
Ruthyn Turney, Manager
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HEALTH SURVEY AT CHEMAWA
(Continued from page 1)
examination by just such a staff of doctors as the ones
that are now examining students at Chemawa.
There are two reasons why this work is being done
just now—one is that the Department of Indian Affairs
and the management of the school itself are increas
ingly interested in building up the health of Indian
children, and the other is that one of the main jobs
always of the Oregon Tuberculosis Association, the
oldest and strongest organization in the state, is to
build up everybody’s health so that nobody will have
tuberculosis, and so it is always looking for a chance
to do a good piece of health work. And where could
one ever do a piece of health work that would be more
worth while than at a big boarding school like Che
mawa?
The Oregon Tuberculosis Association is not going
to claim much of the credit for this work because the
doctors and the nurses and other people who are help
ing are all giving their time without being paid by
any-one, solely because they are interested.
Most of the doctors will be chest specialists but there
will be others, too, because we are interested in the
whole child and not exclusively in his lungs.
The Victor Xray Corporation has loaned an Xray
machine, because they, too, are interested, besides
wanting to show what their littlest machine can do.
The school has had an expert Xray technician on
the staff for a month taking Xray pictures of the chest
of every student in the school. This part of the work
—which is really the most expensive of all—is being
paid for by the government.
One part of the preliminary work has been a skin
test that is quite important, but it is equally import
ant that the students and their parents shall under
stand just what this test means.
The test is applied one day and a day or two, or three
later, perhaps, there will be a little red spot around it,
or perhaps quite a large red spot with swelling. This
does not mean that the child has tuberculosis—most
of them are not sick at all—but it does mean that at
sometime he has been where there was a tuberculosis
patient and has taken into his system a few tubercu
losis germs, technically called an infection, which
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get to working and finally make him sick if he doesn’t
make it his business always to stay well.
There is less and less tuberculosis in this country
every year, but there is still a great deal and unfortun
ately there is still a good deal among Indians and if we
are ever to get rid of it it has got to be by protecting
the children and by keeping them, even though they
may have been infected, from ever breaking down
with tuberculosis.
There are a good many children at Chemawa who
show that they have at some time been infected—be
fore they came here, of course—and there may be a
few—because some of them have lived for a long time
in a home where there was a sick tuberculosis patient
—who will be found to need very special care and
building up to keep them from being ill. The children
are to be examined by some of the very finest physicians
in Oregon and it is earnestly hoped that if they advise
giving any child special sanatorium care the parents
will see to it at once that this care is given.
We hardly ever would have any one seriously sick
with tuberculosis if everybody who shows the first
little beginning signs of it could have the right kind
of care immediately, and could stay under the right
kind of care until he is entirely well.
The medical examinations were to begin on Nov.
12th, yesterday, and—because a great deal of prelim
inary work has been done, and because there will be
quite a staff of examining physicians, it is hoped that
the work can be completed by the end of the week.
Soon after that there will be another story about it in
the Chemawa American, but in the meanwhile the
Oregon Tuberculosis Association which really started
the whole thing off and is putting quite a bit of time
and some money—Christmas seal sale money—into it,
sends its greetings to all the students and all the
parents who may read this story and urges them all
to keep in mind that the thing to strive for now and
always is Radiant Health. Radiant health protects
against tuberculosis, but it does much more than that,
it makes life one long happy experience from begin
ning to end and that is worth striving for.
LOCAL
Last Wednesday evening the student body convened
in the auditorium and enjoyed a real “pep” meeting.
Two new boys are enrolled in Brewer Hall, Fred
Kalama from Nespelem, Wash., and Charles McOnlly
of Fort Hall, Idaho.
Mrs. Lottie Taylor Turner, whose home was form
erly in Paris, Tennessee, but who is now a matron in
the Children’s Farm Home at Corvallis, is visiting Miss
French, a teacher in our domestic science department.