The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-03
Conditions Are Bad, and Forty
Deaths Recorded.
HOSPITALS INADEQUATE
OFFICERS OF MONTANA REGI-
MENT ARE LAID UP.
seventy-fve Per Cent of One Bat
terry On Sick List In a Month
CHARTERED On Damp Ground Floors
Eight Hundred Troops Incapaci-
tated For Duty.

San Francisco. Nov. 1.-THE Associat-
ed Press has received the following
correspondence, dated Manila, Oct. s:
The health of the troops here at pres
ent is far from being good, notwith-
standing the statements of the medical
department to the contrary. AT Cavite
the conditions are very bad. There
have been over 40 deaths there since
Sept. l, mostly from typhoid fever.
One-third of the officers of the Mon
tana volunteer regiment are on the sick
list, including the colonel and lieuten-
ant colonel, who are unfit for duty. In
one battery alone, over rs per cent of
the men stationed there have been on
the sick list within a month, the Off
GERS being affected as we'll as the pri-
Yates. The hospital accommodations
there are inadequate. The supply OF
medicines was exhausted at one time,
and for days there was nothing medi
cinally to administer to the patients.
The place is unhealthy at best.
SLEEP ON DAMP GROUNDS.
The men are quartered on ground
floors where it is damp, and, in this
country especially, conducive to illness.
Many of them worked themselves i'll
during the process of cleaning Cavite,
but now that the sanitary conditions
are being looked after, an improved
health record will doubtless follow.
In Manila the conditions are better.
The men are fairly well quartered and
are being given better accommodations
! as fast as possible, and it will not now
be long before all reason for complaint
will have passed. Much of the sickness
of the past can be traced to the over
croWding of the men while proper quar-
| tiers were being prepared. Malaria is
| the most common of the diseases
among the troops. A malarial condi-
| ton is the natural result of the climate
| and sanitary conditions which prevail
Typhoid fever has also developed to a
serious degree. The average number Of
sick in the hospitals, in addition to the
number of men relieved from duty by
| order of the physicians, is 800. The new
| cases reported to the hospitals daily
average about 40.
SMALLPOX BREAKS OUT.
There have been u cases of smallpox
among the soldiers so far, six of which
have proved fatal. The regimental
physicians have advised the white
washing of the quarters and the liberal
use of corrosive sublima Re, but there
| is not sufficient lime or corrosive subli-
| mate, or even a substitute, to be had.
smallpox Is always prevalent. among
the natives, many having it as children.
The doctors are doing everything pos
sible to confne it among the natives.
No cases have been reported for the
| past five days. The hospitals, which in
! the past have been nothing more than
death traps. are being put into sanitary
! condition. They are abundantly sup
piled with food and medicines. The
Red Cross has been greatly misman-
| l,nc - CiGf-
ance.
Colonel Lippincott has steadily refused
to give out any information to the
press from his Office up to today, and
only then through General Otis. Col
onel Lippincott said: with cooler
weather a radical improvement is look
ed for
General Otis recently inspected one
of the hospitals, the Convent hospital,
/ established here since the capitulation
| of Manila, and said it was the finest
hospital he had ever visited.