The record-union., 1899-08-20
HEALTH AND DISEASE IN THE
PHILIPPINES.

Ex-senator Edmunds' statement that
Americans cannot live in the Philip
pines has been made much of, far
more than it was entitled to. First, it
cuts no important figure, if true in the
question of our dominance in the ISL
ands Secondly, there is no proposi-
ton of colonization before the people
nor viii there be. Thirdly, the con-
dition of the American soldiers sent to
the Philippines and returned from
there, and the records of their sur
geons and hospital officers, fatty con-
tradict the charge that they have been
subject to special disease because Of
climatic conditions.
The fact is that the whole number
sent considered, the death rate from
disease incident to climatic conditions
is small, despite the sensational stories
and flaming headlines of the yellow
press. To get at the truth one needs
to take the cold facts, the official re-
ports, and it will be found that there
have been, the proportion as to num-
bers being preserved, fewer deaths
from disease among American troops
in the Philippines because of climate
than there were among our soldiers
in home camps during the Spanish war
This fact stares the sensationalists
boldly in the face and will not be ex-
plained away. That is to say, there
was less sickness and death from other
causes than wounds in the Philippine
camps among American troops, than
in home detention and waiting camps,
numbers considered.
Take the Oregon regiment, for in
stance. The "Oregonian" shows that
the official reorts prove that the regi-
ment lost but % men by disease, and
Of these seven fell before typhoid fever
four Of smallpox and one Of measles,
all which diseases afflicted volunteer
camps in our home land, and even in
the boasted bracing climate of San
Francisco.
In 1S61-62 these diseases prevailed in
the camps on the Potomac and the
deaths were far greater in number to
the thousand. In the case of the Ore
gon regiment the record ascribes nine
deaths to malarial fever and dysentery.
but both diseases prevailed in the home
camps. 1t may be conceded that both
are more likely to aff1ict new comers
to the Philippines than the acclimated,
and especially those who, as all the
testimony shows, would not observe
as strictly as they should have done
the sanitary precautions prescribed for
them.
There was one death in the Oregon
regiment from meningitis, a filth dis
ease, which along with typhoid, it viii
be remembered scourged the Arctic
Skaguay and Dyea- The Oregonians
lost one from heart disease, one from
asthma, one from eresypelas and one
from peritonitis; certainly not to be
ascribed to climatic conditions
Taking the Oregon regiment at its
full enlistment number and making
the allowance necessary to reduce the
health estimate to the rate per one
thousand, to correspond with the basis
Of calculation of the State Board of
Health, and comparing the statistics
of the regiment with the death rate in
California per annum per thousand.
and we find that in the year the Ore.
gons spent in Luzon, they lost but a
small percentage more than the pop
ulation of California from disease per
thousand per annum
Reasonably the sudden changes of
climate, the hardships of campaigning,
and camp living, ETC.. ought to give the
regiment a very greatly larger death
rate. 1t may safely be assumed, de-
spite the fact that the men are sup
posed to rate among selected lives, that
had the regiment remained in camp
at San Francisco and have been free
from the hardships of campaigning, it
would have lost by disease in the year
over four-fifths as many as it did in
Luzon under the conditions new to it,
and incident to exposure. battle, change
Of climate, etc. Yet it is conceded that