A REPORT ON THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED AUTOPSIES AT 

 THE PHILIPPINE MEDICAL SCHOOL. 



By Philip K. Gilman. 

 {From the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology, Philippine Medical School. 



There have been a large number of autopsies performed by the Bureau 

 of Government Laboratories and its successor, the Bureau of Science since 

 the American occupation of these Islands. While in the cases of acute 

 infectious diseases the diagnoses have been carefully made and recorded, 

 and in other special cases full protocols have been preserved, in general the 

 records are not adapted to furnish the basis for a complete statistical study 

 of the relative frequency with which the different chronic diseases occur. 

 A systematic study has been made, by gross and histologic methods, of 

 the pathologic material, and complete records of the findings have been 

 kept since the opening of the Philippine Medical School, in the depart- 

 ment of pathology and bacteriology organized by Dr. H. T. Marshall. 

 The examinations are made according to the usual Virchow routine, 

 and are designed especially to furnish material and records for a general 

 statistical inquiry. The routine includes the preservation of pieces of 

 the organs in Zenker's fluid and subsequent histologic examinations. 



No unusual efforts have been made to discover remote foci of tuber- 

 culosis or syphilis, and the examination for the presence of intestinal 

 parasites has not been altogether complete. Cultures were made in 

 only a few instances. The nerves were examined for degenerations in 

 only one or two cases in which a clinical report rendered the diagnosis of 

 beriberi probable. 



The following report is based upon the findings in the first one 

 hundred autopsies performed at the . Philippine Medical School between 

 August, 1907, and January, 1908. Although the number of cases is 

 comparatively small, these findings should give a good conception of the 

 relative frequency among the lower classes of Filipinos of the commoner 

 diseases, with the exception of the acute epidemic ones, for the bodies 

 came from the free wards of the large hospitals and from the poorer 

 quarters of the city of Manila. Cholera, smallpox, leprosy, etc., are 

 treated only in the special hospital for these diseases, and such conditions 

 would not enter into our records except on rare occasions. 



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