Meet the Women Who Battled Tuberculosis in Indian Country

In his latest book, a scholar of Native American history explores a little-known collaboration that made big impacts

Published May 9, 2019

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — By the turn of the 20th century, tuberculosis rates across much of the U.S. were in steady decline. But in some communities, the struggle to fight the deadly disease had only just begun.

These communities included the 29 tribes of Southern California’s Mission Indian Agency — Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Cupeño, Kumeyaay, Luiseño, and Serrano bands among them, said Clifford Trafzer, a distinguished professor of history and Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs at the University of California, Riverside.

For three decades, Trafzer has studied the health of Mission Indian Agency tribes, as well as how collaborative efforts between tribes and a new breed of public health advocate — the traveling field nurse — tempered rates of infectious diseases and improved health outcomes for American Indians.

In his latest book, “Fighting Invisible Enemies: Health and Medical Transitions Among Southern California Indians,” released this month by the University of Oklahoma Press, Trafzer chronicles the work of field nurses who served in the region between 1928 and 1948, working closely with American Indian families.

“This is a good example of people working together for a common goal: better health,” Trafzer said. “The field nurses are heroes to me because of the relationships they created through their work; over time, they became very close to the people they worked with, including other ‘indigenous nurses’ who shared knowledge about the medicine ways of their people, such as plant medicine.”

At its core, Trafzer said the book is a testament to the strength of women who put aside their differences and triumphed over disease — even without the assistance of streptomycin, the only effective antibiotic known to kill tuberculosis.

“A lot of the early field nurses had previously been World War I nurses, so they had seen battle and the gore of war,” he said. “They were up for the challenge and the adventure of living out in the middle of nowhere with only a used automobile to get them from place to place.”

Read the full story here: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2019/05/08/meet-women-who-battled-tuberculosis-indian-country