Photo from W. H. Holmes, U. S. National Museum 

 A PREHISTORIC WATER GOD 



This enormous serpent is found sculptured on the rock on a hillside near the town of 

 Fuente, in Mexico. It is represented as if crawling out of the spring, which here issues 

 from the rocks. It is 20 feet in length and its tail is hidden in the spring. Archeologists 

 are of the opinion that it represents a Mexican water god. 



island, but they are being reduced at the 

 rate of about 12,000 a year. The treat- 

 ment is free to the people, the expense 

 being borne by the government. 



With hundreds of thousands of men, 

 women, and children released from the 

 thralldom of one of the most wasting 

 and preying diseases that may attack the 

 human system, humanitarian ends with- 

 out measure have been served ; and, with 

 their earning power doubled, their ability 

 to work in many cases trebled, the great 

 crusade against the hookworm in Porto 

 Rico constitutes one of the brightest 

 pages in all colonial history. Here pub- 

 lic medicine has been put to the test, and 

 the most enthusiastic promises of the 

 sanitarian and exponent of preventive 

 medicine has seen his dreams come true. 



A TERRIBLE PICTURE 



That Porto Rico under Spain was little 

 different from Central America today is 



shown by a prize-winning essay that was 

 published at the big centennial celebra- 

 tion of 1897- — an essay that was awarded 

 the prize by the Spanish authorities on 

 the island themselves. In that document 

 the essayist declared : 



"Only the laborer, the son of our fields, 

 one of the most unfortunate beings in the 

 world, with the pallid face, the bare foot, 

 the fleshless body, the ragged clothing, 

 and the feverish glance, strolls indiffer- 

 ently, with the darkness of ignorance in 

 his eyes. In the market he finds for food 

 only the rotten fish or meat, codfish cov- 

 ered with gangrenish splotches, and In- 

 dian rice ; he that harvests the best coffee 

 in the world, who aids in gathering into 

 the granary the sweetest grain in nature, 

 and drives to pasture our beautiful young 

 beef animals cannot carry to his lips a 

 single slice of their flesh ; coffee is to him 

 a prohibited luxury, and he can use only 

 sugar laden with impurities." 



230 



