The Government Forbids the Sale of Peruna to Indians.
Expert opinion on the non-medical side is represented in the government order to the Indian Department, reproduced on the following page, the kernel of which is this:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, D. C., August 10, 1905.
To Indian Agents and School Superintendents in charge of Agencies:
The attention of the Office has been called to the fact that many licensed traders are very negligent as to the way in which their stores are kept. Some lack of order might he condoned, but it is reported that many stores are dirty even to filthiness. Such a condition of affairs need not be tolerated, and improvement in that respect must be insisted on.
The Office is not so inexperienced as to suppose that traders open stores among Indians from philanthropic motive's. Nevertheless a trader has a great influence among the Indians with whom he has constant dealings and who are often dependent upon him, and there are not a few instances in which the trader has exerted this influence for the welfare of his customers as well as for his own profit.