Armstrong – Table of Contents

The team improvised isolation of cases. Only three patients were isolated in an
emergency hospital opened in Shipwreck, New Mexico. The team abandoned case
isolation because of the difficulty of transporting patients to the facility and because the
patients and families objected to the procedure. The team isolated subsequent cases in
their own hogans with only a single attendant to look after them; other family members
sought temporary shelter elsewhere until the danger of contagion had diminished.
General delousing of the reservation population began after the team decided on
specifications for the construction and purchase of improvised equipment mounted on a
small truck. The components of the assembled apparatus included the truck, a 3-
horsepower boiler, a 400-gallon tank for bathing water, and 2 steam tanks for sterilizing
the clothes, pumps, spray baths and three tents. The general delousing operations began
July 9, 1921.
The delousing occurred by districts – 5 in number. Prior to going into a district,
local mounted police rode out to notify the people that delousing would begin on a
certain day at a specified location. They instructed the people that they should come and
bring their bedding, quilts, blankets, clothing and other personal possessions. One visit by
guards usually sufficed, but if any intended candidates for delousing failed to appear, the
guards had instructions to pay a second visit and to bring in the laggards. When the
Indians arrived, the attendants instructed them to deliver their blankets, and other articles
that would not be injured by steaming, to the steam sterilizers. There, these articles were
subjected to live steam for from 25 to 30 minutes. While this steaming was occurring, the
women took their pelts to the tubs where they washed them in a solution of nicotine
sulfate (40% black leaf used in dipping sheep) 1:1,000 dilution in alkaline water kept at