MEDICAL SURVEY OF THE TOWN OF TAYTAY. 



IX. GENERAL SANITARY CONDITIONS. 



By Paul Clements.^ 

 (From the Bureau of Health.) 



In Taytay the majority of the inhabitants enjoy what would be re- 

 garded as modest comfort according to Filipino provincial standards; 

 comparatively few are wealthy and the poorer people do not suffer any 

 hardships. The principal occupations of the inhabitants are agriculture 

 and fishing. Many follow both vocations according to the season. At 

 present, there are no Americans or Europeans and only two Chinese 

 residing in the town, and it would appear that the conditions of life 

 have not been much modified by contact with foreign influ.ence. For 

 tliis reason, a medical survey of the town should be fairly typical of 

 this section of the Philippine Islands. 



The great cholera epidemic of 1882 is said to have started at Taytay, 

 and since that time the town has had a bad reputation from a sanitary 

 point of view. Taytay also suffered severely in the cholera epidemic of 

 1902, and again in 1905, though perhaps not more than the other 

 provincial towns of central Luzon. 



A small portion of the town, including the church, schoolhouse, and 

 municipal building, occupies a low foothill of the Antipole Eange ; much 

 the greater part, however, is built on an alluvial plain with a gradual 

 slope toward the south, in the direction of the Laguna de Bay. (Plates 

 X and XL) Two principal streams run through the town, their beds 

 lying from 6 to 10 feet below the level of the plain. They carry a 

 variable volume of water during the rainy season and early months of 

 the dry season, but during the latter months of the dry season they are 

 without water except for disconnected pools along their courses. Two 

 smaller tributary streams also assist in the drainage of the town. Ob- 

 servations of the level of the water in a number of wells made during the 

 latter part of the dry season indicate that the ground water readies to 

 within about 12 feet of the surface when it is at its lowest level. 



The average dwelling in Taytay is a structure having a frame of which 



' Medical inspector, Bureau of Health, Manila, P. I. 



247 



