An American Doctor’s Odyssey

Description

by: Victor Heiser

It was the dawning of the 20th century but much of the world was still in darkness concerning the connection between germs and disease. In the Philippines of 1905, smallpox, cholera, bubonic plague, leprosy and beri-beri, now largely archaic illness, were still rampant. Health measures, people believed, had been created to make them unhappy and uncomfortable.

The Americans filled up the stagnant, centuries-old moat of the Walled City, confiscated contaminated foods, tore up infested walls and floors of houses, even evacuated and burned a whole contaminated district (Farola).

The Antipolo fiesta, observed Dr. Heiser, the American Director of Health, was the single greatest hazard to health. Thousands of people congregated, bringing it food from cholera-infected districts and distributing it in great hospitability to those who would partake.

Chewers of betelnut were another factor. Particular about the softness of their chew, purchasers dipped their fingers (dirty or not) into the clay pot to feel the moist leef-wrapped packets. Nor was the boiling of water enforcible. Where cholera continued unbated inspite of citizen swearing they boiled their water, the investigator was told passionately, “Yes, we drink boiled water-we take a tablespoon, three times a day!”

Miracles were an additional problem. A female faith healer daily bathed in a galvanized iron garbage tank with people lining up to drink the miraculous water of her ablutions. The nuns of Sta. Clara, the prisoners, the American editor of The Bulletin all succumbed to disease.

This book is reprinted in pure nostalgia for a time when the only issue between the Filipinos and the Americans was germs.

Copyright 1936 ISBN 200-000-14630-1-8