﻿THE INVESTIGATIONS CARRIED ON BY THE BIOLOGICAL 



LABORATORY IN RELATION TO THE SUPPRESSION 



OF THE RECENT CHOLERA OUTBREAK 



IN' MANILA. 



By Eichaed P. Strong. 

 (From the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



The epidemic of Asiatic cholera which has recently passed through these 

 Islands and has now subsided, occasions me at this time briefly to sum- 

 marize the work of this laboratory in connection with the suppression of 

 the outbreak. In all, there were 7,085 cases of cholera with 5,243 deaths 

 reported by the Bureau of Health for the Philippine Islands. Dr. Victor 

 G-. Heiser, 1 Director of Health, in an admirable article, has recently 

 discussed the origin and history of the outbreak and the general hygienic 

 measures employed in combating the disease. My remarks will be limited 

 to the laboratory measures carried on in connection with the epidemic. 



The first case of cholera discovered in the outbreak occurred in Bilibid 

 Prison on August 23, 1905. An autopsy was performed and a bacterio- 

 logical diagnosis of cholera was reported sixteen hours later to the Bureau 

 of Health. The Philippine Islands had supposedly been entirely free 

 from cholera for the preceding seventeen months. Following the labor- 

 atory diagnosis of the first case, others suspicious of this disease were 

 discovered by the representatives of the Bureau of Health, and within 

 the next few weeks a positive bacteriologic diagnosis of cholera had 

 been rendered by the laboratory in over one hundred instances. Soon 

 after the report of the first case was made public, numerous specimens 

 of the fasces of other patients suspected of having cholera were sent to 

 the laboratory for bacteriological study and throughout the course of the 

 epidemic examinations were carried on by members of the laboratory staff 

 either in the central building or in the several hospitals where the sus- 

 pected cases had been brought. An assistant of this laboratory was also 

 stationed at the cholera hospital and was prepared at any hour of the day 

 or night to undertake the bacteriological diagnosis of the cases admitted. 

 The cholera spirillum was found present in 412 of 582 specimens of 



1 Am. Med. (1907), 48, 856. 



413 



