EDITORIAL. 65 



of disease, it is well recognized that cholera may be spread by such per- 

 sons, although the organisms do not remain for long periods of time in 

 their intestines. It has been suggested that it was by the means of 

 such carriers that cholera was introduced from St. Petersburg into Berlin. 

 In the epidemic of Hamburg many healthy individuals were found to 

 harbor bacilli. I can not give all the figures, but I remember that the 

 examination of 60 eases, revealed 19 who had cholera organisms in their 

 stools, and none of these had practically any symptoms of cholera. This 

 year, in Japan, 2 per cent of the individuals examined coming into contact 

 with cholera cases were found to carry cholera organisms in their stools. 

 Von Esmarch found that 12 out of 35 healthy cholera contacts examined, 

 contained cholera spirilla in their dejecta. In Manila during the present 

 year we have already found 27 healthy individuals (cholera contacts) 

 from whom cholera spirilla have been isolated. 



You ask what is being done in regard to vaccination against cholera 

 in other countries. I can only say that vaccination is pursued extensively 

 in India, where the owners of some large tea plantations no longer 

 employ coolies unless they are vaccinated. At the International Hygienic 

 Congress held last year in Berlin Zabolotoy reported the successful 

 results obtained in Kussia. The government of Egypt was also prepar- 

 ing to use protective vaccination against cholera when I was there in 

 January. Inoculations here in the Islands for cholera have not been 

 very extensive. They show that in the vaccinated the percentage that 

 contracted the disease was only one-sixth of that which contracted it in 

 the nonvaccinated. 



Dean C. Worcester: 1 am sorry to disagree with Doctor Freer in one 

 particular. He has overlooked the fact that although we had passed a 

 good sanitary code, the Municipal Board has done some repealing of 

 ordinances. The proper laws were prepared and, with the approval of 

 the Secretary of the Interior, became law. They were enacted in an 

 entirely satisfactory manner, but taking advantage of the fact that its 

 action was not subject to any control by the Bureau of Health or the 

 Governor-General, the Municipal Board has repealed some of the most 

 important sections. It has, furthermore, encouraged constant violations 

 of the provisions of the building ordinance, going on the assumption that 

 it had no proof that the buildings to be erected were going to be used for 

 purposes other than the ones designated by the owners, until they had 

 been so used. In other words, the attitude of the Municipal Board has 

 been that of the policeman who saw a murdered man and another man 

 with a double-barrel shotgun near him, but assumed that he could not 

 arrest the latter because he had not seen him use the gun. We have 

 many houses unfit for human habitation, and as long as the Municipal 

 Board is obliged to accept the statements of the people as to how they 

 Avill be used, this will continue. 



I can state the following as to whether or not cholera is endemic in 



