The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-09-03
FIGHTING DISEASE IN THE PHILIPPINES:
A Veritable Plague OF
Man, Beast and
Field
Especial Correspondence.)

MANILA.-The Americans have fair
" won the right to be called the
champion house-cleaners of the weird
Whatever may be said in criticism of
our attempts at government in SPANS
degenerate colonies. there can be no
doubt concerning the success of our
sanitary work Although our disease
fighters had much to overcome in
Cuba and Porto Rico. it was not
marker to what they have encountered
here.
Since the American occupation of
the Philippines there has been a YER
table plague of man, beast. and field.
The cholera has claimed upwards of
100000 victims, the rinderpest has de-
stroyed fully eighty-five per cent. of all
the work animals III the islands, and
the field crops have been ravaged by
insect pests. Such a succession of ca
families, although extremely disheart-
Fning, did not cause our officials to
despair, and they have at last sue
ceeded in stamping out the pestilence. |
THE PREY OF EVIL SPIRITS.
Their work was made much more
difficult on account of the poverty and |
ignorance of the people. 1t has been
found that in the City of Manila, the ,
center of all the civilization the is
lands possess. over half the people die |
without medical attendance. They do |
not understand the use of medicine |
1.aI;A
troubles are que their beng me |
prey of evil spirits. They explain |
cholera by saying that a black dog |
runs down the street and the plague |
follows after it. attacking all whom |
Providence has selected as victims.
When a sick native is found curled |
up in the corner of his hut and ques- |
toned to what ails him, he invari- |
ably answers one of three things
headache, stomach-ache, or fever. That |
is about as far as his idea of the char
acter of disease goes He objects to |
taking medicine because he is a fatal |
list. believing that when his time comes |
there is no use for him to resist the /
summons. a substitute for medical |
treatment among the natives has been
the illustrations of spirit doctors.
When one of them becomes ILL., and |
q quack has been called in, he begins |
investigation by inquiring where the
patient was when first afflicted and
what he was doing at the time. He
thereby pretends to determine the char
acter of the spirit which infests the
invalid. as well as the nature Of the |
ailment Should the sufferer have been
at work outdoors, an animal will be |
ordered killed and its unlocked head
left on a plate in the middle of the
field to appease the anger of the evil
genius which provoked the trouble
If such treatment fails of immediate
cure the patient is often moved to the
house of relative in order to evade
the supposed baneful influence that
caused the affliction. This removal is
always undertaken at night in the dark
of the moon. The body of the invalid
is surrounded by men with drawn
weapons to ward off the attack of the
spirit in case it should become aware
of the removal and attempt TO inter-
fere If a black butterfly flies into
dwelling it is taken as a certain omen
of death and if a member of that
household becomes i'll it is almost i'm
possible to cure him on account of
his obstinate belief that he is doomed.
OFFICERS KILLED BY RABBLE.
When the first cases of cholera APP
peared in Manila the officials under
stood that if they failed to keep the
water supply pure there would be no
hope of preventing the spread OF the
disease The ignore mt protests OF the
inhabitants against the measures used
for their preservation threatened for
a time to thwart the entire work. Two
sanitary officers who were disinfecting
a cistern were attacked by the rabble
"a ...s...s.e a e.,s...