In Gleason’s “School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930,”, she continuously conveys the argument that middle-class professional white men were dictating how “the social construction of health” should be viewed and carried out in British Columbia. Gleason talks about how First Nations people were isolated and faced blame regarding the outbreak of smallpox, Gleason stating that the health officials didn’t focus on the option of treatment, and also didn’t provide guards insuring that this outbreak wouldn’t cause a provincial wide epidemic as notices were placed on houses, but no strict isolations were carried out, and some contacts had even traveled to town (forced quarantines were also seen as detrimental to breadwinners that were confined especially in working-class families), bringing to light the inaccuracy of the “hopes” to keep the spread of the dreaded diseases and infections as outlined by the middle-class professional white men who made the rules. All while these “procedures” seem to be ignored, actively neglecting the health of the Nanaimo Indian Reservation, while continuing to place blame on the “filth and disease”, perhaps this was the cause of “rates if death from tuberculosis among Native peoples were five times that of whites in 1929.” (Gleason 289). All the while, “the others” including First Nations, Asian immigrants, and other non-whites and foreigners (Italians, Greeks, and Russians) were targeted as minority populations with a lack of understanding of the struggles that the immigrants faced, including having children working as a way to help the family survive. This can be seen by Mary Jong, a young Chinese Canadian who had to work in the vegetable garden before school, and would be punished for coming to school dirty, while the staff at the school payed no attention to the fact that she did not have time to clean up before school stated. While more responsibility to the parents was expected as reporting a “contagious disease was considered both a moral and a legal responsibility.” (Gleason 290) which I believe is an important good step in the right direction to maintain the health and safely of the population. While the middle-class professional white men who shared their socially constructed view of what health should be, and what it meant to be healthy (clean, orderly, etc.), I don’t find it unreasonable for people to be concerned at this time for the spread of contagious diseases in families, schools, and communities. While their intensions may not have been put into place in the most respectful ways (as many people seemed to have anxieties and fears about the new reforms), it was necessary to have a standard line of cleanliness and sanitation as a way to reduce massive amounts of disease and infections from the population in British Columbia.
In Rutherdale’s article “Children, Health, and Hygiene in Northern Canadian Communities” shows the insensitivity that missionaries, teachers, doctors, and nurses showed towards the reformation of Aboriginal communities. Colonizers criticized how First Nations women gave birth in “untradition” ways (the rope method) causing the Aboriginal women to feel as if they had “lost their sense of empowerment through the erosion of their control over childbirth” (306). This bring back the idea (mention by Gleason) of white colonizers trying to force their beliefs of “how it should be” and “what is right” onto a group of people with different beliefs and ideals than them. While colonizers had “a profound belief that traditional [Aboriginal] culture practices could and should be displaced, id not eradicated.” (305 Rutherdale), and separated the locals from their “customary practices” (306). Yet, Wilsons description of experiences is show as “she did not want Aboriginal women to give up the entirety of their traditional practices.” (308) they only wanted the Indigenous women to give up some of them…perhaps not a great “compromise”, but it is important that Wilson is seen as sensitive to many of their practices, and “did not appear to advocate to change.” (308). Yet many new comers disapproved of other practices, including:
- the lack of clothing, allowing the outsiders to view the Aboriginals as “’Barbarism’ to ‘civilization’” as infants clothing was criticized by nurses and missionaries until the end of the 1850s (311)
- the lack of adequate bathing, as settlers were obsessed with hygiene, as a boy named Yarley is described as being a smelly “’dirty little barbarian’” (314), as Fleming then decided to slowly introduce reforms on cleanliness (similar to what we read in Gleason). As Rutherdale states “From Fleming’s perspective, the transition to Christianity required a good dose of personal and public hygiene.” (315) …but who said they Aboriginals wanted to transition to Christianity.
Scheduling, routine, and lessons were a way for all of the above (clothing, bathing birthing) to be given instruction. Would these content communities ever be comfortable with the white man’s idea of cleanliness? In the “mission-run comunit[ies], schools, continued to face missionaries and nurses who placed as much emphasis on hygiene and they did on religion and scholarship.” (316) and “Repetition was viewed as the key to success.” (317). Clean students meant studious students, according to Marsh (317) and viewed hygiene and health as important as religion and the three R’s.” (318). More cases of Inuit’s being encouraged to leave their cultures behind and move into prefabricated homes, go to local schools (on times that were “acceptable to the outsiders, but didn’t really make sense to the geographic location due to long days due to the “midnight sun” hours) are all shown by the establishment of the Pont Inlet, established by the Canadian Government where the main language spoken was Inuktituk. In Lower Post scales were used inaccurately, doctors acted as dentists because they had “nothing better to do” (319), and Inuit students at Aklavik’s Anglican All Saints Residential School remembered being forced to have cod liver oil every morning in the 1930’s, before running to the bathroom to spit it out (320).
Both of these writings pose very interesting insights regarding how settlers/ middle-class white men viewed how these indigenous societies should be “changed” and abandon their traditions and roots. In turn, many sanitation procedures were places as “Children and their bodies stood at the center of the battle waged with Native people over the regimes and rituals that would govern the most intimate parts of their lives. (Rutherdale 320), allowing me as a reader to think critically about what sanitations may have been necessary (basic cleaning) and what protocols may have been overboard: unclean students meant non-studious children, as some including the Chinese girl who had to work in the farmland before school every morning before class and didn’t have time to clean up before school.