The Medicine Woman of Galveston

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, illness, substance use, death, sexual content, sexual violence, rape, ableism, and racism. This section specifically contains offensive language for Indigenous peoples that has been censored in direct quotes.

The next day, Tucia takes a look inside the freshly erected case-taking tent. It looks like a country doctor’s office except for the grossly inaccurate medical drawings and models. While Tucia finds it farcical, Huey is entirely pleased with the set up. He gives Tucia a nurse’s cap to wear but forbids her from calling him “doctor” during “examinations”—he wants people to come to conclusions themselves so he doesn’t have to break the law outright. Huey also forcibly grabs Tucia’s medical bag and takes some of the instruments, including the stethoscope, for himself.

The examinations begin, and Tucia is appalled by how Huey refuses to let the patients speak, conducting theatrical examinations and proclaiming outrageous diagnoses. He hands each of them a packet of “A. A.’s Revitalizing Crystals” (165), a concoction of Epsom salts, sugar, and wintergreen oil, and charges them what he believes they will pay. Despite Tucia’s dismay as she writes up each receipt, the entire exercise is so removed from a physician’s work that she is at least assured it will not trigger another “hysterical attack.