Health Conditions
I had abundant opportunity to observe health conditions in the Philippines during the Spanish régime and they were shocking in the extreme. There were no provisions for the sanitary disposal of human waste even in Manila. If one had occasion to be out on foot at night, it was wise to keep in the middle of the street and still wiser to carry a raised umbrella.
Immediately after the American occupation some five hundred barrels of caked excrement were taken from a single tower in one of the old Manila monasteries. The moat around the city wall, and the esteros, or tidal creeks, reeked with filth, and the smells which assailed one’s nostrils, especially, at night, were disgusting.
Distilled water was not to be had for drinking purposes. The city water supply came from the Mariquina River, and some fifteen thousand Filipinos lived on or near the banks of that stream above the intake. The water was often so thick with sediment that one could not see through a glass of it, and it was out of the question to attempt to get it boiled unless one had facilities of one’s own.
Conditions in the provinces were proportionately worse. As a rule, there was no evidence of any effort to put provincial towns into decent sanitary conditions. I must, however, note one striking exception. Brigadier General Juan Arolas, long the governor of Joló, had a thorough knowledge of modern sanitary methods and a keen appreciation of the benefits derivable from their application. When he was sent to Joló, practically in banishment, the town was a plague spot to which were assigned Spaniards whose early demise would have been looked upon with favour by those in power. He converted it into a healthy place the death rate of which compared favourably with that of European cities, thereby demonstrating conclusively what could be done even under very unfavourable conditions. No troops in the islands were kept in anything like such physical condition as were the regiments assigned to him, and he bore a lasting grudge against any one inconsiderate enough to die in Joló.
Everywhere I saw people dying of curable ailments. Malaria was prevalent in many regions in which it was impossible to secure good quinine. The stuff on sale usually consisted largely of cornstarch, or plaster of Paris. Fortunately we had brought with us from the United States a great quantity of quinine and we made friends with the Filipinos in many a town by giving this drug gratis to their sick.
Smallpox was generally regarded as a necessary ailment of childhood. It was a common thing to see children covered with the eruption of this disease watching, or joining in, the play of groups of healthy little ones.
The clothing of people who had died of smallpox was handed on to other members of the family, sometimes without even being washed. The victims of the disease often immersed themselves in cold water when their fever was high, and paid the penalty for their ignorance with their lives.
The average Spaniard was a firm believer in the noxiousness of night air, which he said produced paludismo.[1] Most Filipinos were afraid of an imaginary spirit, devil or mythical creature known as asuáng, and closed their windows and doors after dark as a protection against it. Thus it came about that in a country where fresh air is especially necessary at night no one got it.
Tuberculosis was dreadfully common, and its victims were conveying it to others without let or hindrance.