Statistics of Alaska native school service for year ending June 30, 1931-Contd.

NOTE.-Items such as travel, destitution supplies, salaries for superintendents and administrative office, etc., not included in above amounts.

The appropriation for medical relief for the natives of Alaska in the year 1930-31 totaled $268,760, and included the salaries of physicians, nurses, transportation of patients to and from hospitals, medical supplies and equipment, new buildings, freight, and miscellaneous expenses.

Hospitals are maintained at the strategic centers of Akiak, Juneau, Kanakanak, Kotzebue, Noorvik, Mountain Village, and Tanana, with summer medical boat service on the Yukon River. Part-time physicians are under appointment at Cordova, Nome, and Chitina. Station nurses are maintained at 16 different settlements throughout the Territory. Medical supplies are furnished to all schools, the teachers rendering first-aid treatment as needed.

Hospitals of 16 beds each have been constructed at Kotzebue and Mountain Village. The Kotzebue hospital serves the entire population of the Selawik River, the Kobuk River, and the Noatak River sections. The physician in charge of the Kotzebue hospital, with the assistance of a traveling nurse, has been able to extend his work through the entire Kotzebue Sound section. Also, provision is made at this hospital for the care and treatment of the tubercular patients.

The Mountain Village hospital also meets an urgent need at the lower section of the Yukon River where the people have been without regular medical service, excepting that rendered by the medical boat during the summer season.

The hospital at Juneau, the largest maintained by the Office of Indian Affairs with a total of 26 beds, has been increased in size by

the addition of a tubercular annex whereby 26 tubercular patients may be treated. A laboratory technician has been added to the Juneau hospital staff and an X-ray machine installed and regular treatment of tubercular patients is now given.

The appropriation bill for 1930-31 provided for the appointment of a medical director. Such a director has long been needed as the coordination of the medical service requires the direction of a man trained for that work. Teachers also need certain training which only a member of the medical profession can give as he visits all stations in Alaska.

The survey covering public health work for the native population of 14,895, where schools are maintained, showed the following situa tion: Tubercular adults, 411; tubercular children, 207; syphilitic adults, 204; syphilitic children, 81; blind adults, 53; blind children, 10; diseases of the eye, 335; destitution, 58; dependent children, 153; delinquent children, 3; orthopedic hospital cases, 28.

The requirements for physicians and nurses in the Alaska medical service are: For a physician, graduation from a legally charted medical school where requirements for graduation are not less than the requirements of the Association of American Medical Colleges, as well as evidence of the completion of a year's interneship in a recognized hospital, or of successful practice for at least four years, and a license from the medical examining board of the Territory of Alaska. For the position of nurse the requirements are: Graduation from a school for nurses of recognized standing, as well as evidence of successful professional practice for at least one year. The profession of dentist requires graduation from a legally charted dental college of recognized standing, as well as a certificate from the board of dental examiners of the Territory of Alaska. In addition to certain professional qualifications, all persons recommended in the Alaska medical service should have upright character, philanthropic motives, good judgment, initiative, and ability to do effective work under adverse circumstances.

Nurses appointed for service in native villages are under continuous duty at the salary of $1,760 per year, with quarters, fuel, and light furnished. Nurses at the hospitals and also those on duty at the industrial schools receive the salary of $1,640 per annum, with subsistence, quarters, fuel, and light. The salary of physicians is at the rate of $3,940 per annum, with travel allowance, subsistence, quarters, fuel, and light.

The appropriation bill not only allowed for a medical director, but also for the continuous appointment of a dentist. The dentist is assigned to the Yukon medical boat during the summer season and when that season closes will begin a professional visit to all stations in the Territory. This will require considerable time, as it is expected at least two weeks will be needed in each community to do the dental work required by school children.

Epidemics have hit the native people of the Territory during the year with diphtheria at Barrow, whooping cough on the Lower Kuskokwim, and diphtheria and scarlet fever in the Bristol Bay section. Natives fail to appreciate the necessity of maintaining a quarantine, consequently when an epidemic strikes one community it logically scatters throughout the entire section.

Nurses are urgently needed wherever native people are located. In primitive sections, where civilization has not as yet made contact, the ideal proposition is for nurses to be the first workers in such settlements. These nurses, when of mature age and well trained, prepare the people and the children for the coming of the school. However, in times past, this system has been reversed, as the school invariably preceded the medical work.

The unique medical service in the Territory is that performed on the Yukon River. The fifth year of the medical-boat service on the Yukon ended October 15, 1930; it began June 6, making a season of 108 days. The medical work during the season was unquestionably of higher quality than ever before, owing to the interest in and the understanding of the natives on the part of the physician in charge. Time was also available and taken so that the highest type of dental service could be rendered. According to the statement of the dentist a great many of the Yukon natives suffer from dental caries due to improper nutritional necessities. Of the 400 children who had badly decayed teeth, 62 per cent showed poor calcification as a result of malnutrition. Forty-five per cent of these were between the ages of 8 and 12 years. The boat made stops at all settlements on each side of the Yukon either going down or on the return trip. No distinction was made as to the nationality of the river residents where medical and dental services were needed.

The physician's report for the season showed a total of 1,493 clinical cases examined and treated. A total of 234 successful surgical operations were performed aboard the boat. The dentist's report showed a total of 4,122 actual operations, consisting of prophylaxes, amalgams, cements, porcelains, and extractions. As stated by one of the medical workers at the close of the season, "The medical boat is a very worthy and necessary institution and looked upon by the natives as a godsend.”

Statistics of the medical service for year ending June 30, 1931

Statistics of the medical service for year ending June 30, 1931-Continued

Items such as travel, destitution supplies are not included in above amounts.

MISSION SCHOOLS

In 1785 Chelikof, the first and greatest of the Russian colonizers in Alaska, established a school at Three Saints Bay, on Kodiak Island, so that the children could be instructed in "language, arithmetic, and the precepts of Christianity." Since that time there have been mission schools in Alaska, and the results of their influence are apparent in many localities. In fact, they were the only schools in the Territory until 1885, about 18 years after the transfer from Russia to the United States. With the advent of the publicschool system, which was inaugurated by the Federal Government in 1885, supplemented in 1900 by schools maintained by incorporated towns, in 1905 by schools outside of incorporated towns supported by 30 per cent of moneys collected by the Federal Government from licenses, and in 1917 by the creation of the Territorial school system, the mission schools have gradually withdrawn from the field of education. However, several sectarian schools are still maintained and render most necessary service, especially in some of the more isolated regions.

During the past year schools of this class were conducted by the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic Churches. The fol lowing table shows the schools and approximate enrollment of each denomination:

TERRITORIAL FINANCES

The Territory has its own fiscal system, controlled by laws enacted by the Territorial legislature, which is entirely separate and apart from the revenues received by the Federal Government from business and trade licenses which are covered into and disbursed from the Alaska fund in the Federal Treasury. Territorial revenue acts have been amended from time to time, the act in effect at this time, chapter 31, Session Laws of Alaska, 1921, and amendments thereto, imposing the following license taxes:

Doctors, including persons practicing medicine, surgery, or osteopathy, attorneys at law, optometrists, dentists, undertakers, $10 per annum; automobiles, according to purpose for which operated, a a tax of $10 and $15 per annum; bakeries, a graded tax of $5 per annum for each $5,000 worth of business done annually in excess of $3,000; electric light and power plants, one-half of 1 per cent per annum of the gross receipts in excess of $2,500 and of the net profits from supplies sold; telephone companies, one-half of 1 per cent per annum on gross receipts in excess of $1,500; waterworks, one-half of 1 per cent per annum on gross receipts in excess of $2,500; clam canneries, 3 cents per case; salmon canneries, a basic tax of 10 cents per case on king, or reds, and sockeye, and an additional tax ranging from 5 cents per case to 20 cents per case on certain sized packs in excess of 10,000 cases; on medium reds, cohoes, and pinks a basic tax of 42 cents per case and an additional tax ranging from 2 cents per case to 6 cents per case on certain sized packs in excess of 25,000 cases; on chums, a tax of 3 cents per case and an additional license tax of 1 per cent on net income; salteries, 5 cents per 100 pounds of red king salmon, 22 cents per 100 pounds of white king salmon, 10 cents per 100 pounds of codfish, 21/2 cents per 100 pounds on all other salted or mild-cured fish; fish traps, hand driven or stake traps located on tidelands, $50 per annum; pile-driven or floating traps, $200 per annum, so-called dummy traps included; and an additional tax of $2 per 1,000 on all fish caught in any one trap in excess of 100,000; gill nets and stake nets, $2 per 100 fathoms or fraction thereof; seines, $10 for the first 150 fathoms and $5 additional for each 25 additional fathoms or fractions thereof; cold-storage plants, a graded tax of from $10 to $500 per annum, according to the amount of business done; fish buyers (dealers in fresh fish), one-tenth of 1 cent per pound on fish purchased, except for sale at retail, whether or not the fish buyer operates a cold-storage plant; fish-oil works and fertilizer plants, 40 cents per 50-gallon barrel for oil and 40 cents per ton for fertilizers and fish meal; whale oil and fertilizer, 50 cents per 50-gallon barrel for oil and 50 cents per ton for fertilizers; laundries, a graded tax of from $25 to $75 per annum, according to amount of business done; meat markets, a graded tax of from $50 to $500 per annum, according to amount of business done, and an additional $50 imposed for each $20,000 worth of business done in excess of $100,000 per annum; mercantile establishments doing a business of more than $100,000 per annum, $50 per annum on each $20,000 of excess; mining, 1 per cent of net income in excess of $10,000 and not in excess of $500,000, 12 per cent of net income in excess of