Multiplying and Dividing - The University of Auckland

esponsible for conducting the medical examination of children prior to admission, had thefollowing to say regarding admission requirements and tuberculosis:I cannot recall any child, from any Reserve except Island Lake, whom I should not haverejected for tuberculosis if the regulation had been strictly adhered to. Those who appearto have active tuberculosis are rejected. Those whose infection appears dormant arepassed. They have to be. Otherwise there would be no pupils in the schools. There areno better to be had. They do quite as well in schools as they would do outside, but, atthat, there are too many deaths of pupils during their education (Stone 1925: 247-248).Of the 130 children admitted between 1933 and 1941, eight percent (11) of the applicants hadsome form of TB. Three of the children with TB were not approved for admission due totheir condition: two had active cases of TB of the lungs, and the other had an inactive case ofTB of the lungs. Tuberculosis had been a problem in Norway House and the surroundingcommunities for some time and was reported as a common infection in Norway House by1887 (Maundrell 1941). It continued to be a problem in northern communities well into the20 th century. When Dr Stone submitted a health report for the Norway House Agency in1925, he reported that the chief cause of illness was tuberculosis (Stone 1925). The majorityof the children who were enrolled in NHRS would have likely been exposed to the disease athome due to its high prevalence rate. Had the regulation barring children with TB fromadmission been properly observed, the school would have been empty (Stone 1925). Thisbreach in policy was a common occurrence among the residential schools in order to keepthem full (Bryce 1907, 1909, 1922, Miller 1996).Despite the presence in the school of children already infected with TB, officials believed thatthe school environment was still “healthier” than the homes of the children and, in somecases, would be a better place for a child to live. There is some evidence for this from theadmission records of two children. In 1937, a child with a TB infection in both the lungs andglands applied for admission. Along with his admission and medical forms, the schoolprincipal, Rev. Chapin, included a letter stating that:Any TB he has had has been arrested and he is in apparently good health at the presenttime. This being so he is no menace to the other children. The home he comes from isterribly poor and he ought to stand a much better chance in the school of getting built upagainst further reinfection (NAC, Chapin to Lazenby, Dec 24 1937).Another example comes from 1940, when a girl, aged 16, applied for admission. She was notinfected with tuberculosis; however, it was prevalent in her family. Again, Rev. Chapinincluded a letter along with her admission forms in order to justify her admission to theschool. An excerpt of the letter follows:The parents now have two younger children in the school. The home is not a healthyhome. They lost one child from tuberculosis this winter. The father is now himself inpoor condition. And so the parents are anxious to get this girl in the school for a coupleof years, both to get a bit of training and be cared for physically. The Doctor too isanxious to get her out of her home where she is so liable to infection. Before letting herinto the school however he x-rayed her chest to make sure there was no disease (NAC,Chapin to Lazenby, May 2 1940).Her admission to the school was denied due to her age. Regulations required that the childrenbe discharged at the age of 16 (NAC, Philip to Lazenby, May 21 1940).However, the school environment was not always healthy for children with or withouttuberculosis. For instance, the diet in most Native Residential Schools was considered sub-157