OBSTETRICS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 251 



1894, I noticed that some of the inhabitants when ill preferred to call 

 quacks who treated diseases according to Chinese methods and who 

 used Chinese drugs. The latter were, at least at that time, freely sold 

 in public establishments. There are to-day in Manila old people who 

 remember with pleasure the Chinamen who practiced medicine and 

 acquired fame and popularity in this city even among families of the 

 best social standing and position. 



It goes without saying that the ideas originating in China necessarily 

 influenced Philippine obstetrics, the result being that in regard to 

 parturition, the exotic superstitions of the Asiatics were added to the 

 autochthonous superstitions of the Malay race. It would be curious, were 

 it possible, to make a comparative study of obstetrics in the Philippine 

 Islands and in China and to ascertain the mutual relationship which must 

 exist between the two. Historical documents which might shed light 

 upon this labyrinthic subject are, of course, lacking, but my own experience 

 and the descriptions which I have secured from authentic sources, war- 

 rants my giving some personal information on the subject of certain 

 Philippine superstitions of Chinese origin. What I have learned is as 

 follows : 



When a woman has on the palm of the hand a transverse line completely 

 crossing it, it is a sign that she will have difficult births and it is necessary 

 that at the moment of parturition the line mentioned be covered with a hand- 

 kerchief. Dr. Castaneda, extern in obstetricts in the Philippine Medical School, 

 recently saw a woman in the distrct of Sampaloc who was about to give birth to 

 a child, and noticed that she had on each hand a silk handkerchief covering the 

 lines on the palms. 



Certain bricks of cylindrical form (lario) are manufactured in this country 

 especially for parturients. They are well heated and then applied to the abdomen 

 of the patient for the purpose of expelling from the womb wind and cold, two 

 atmosjiheric agents which, according to Chinese tradition, are mortal enemies 

 of the parturient. 



The patient is never given chicken broth, for as the chicken is winged and 

 flies, it carries with it much wind which it might transmit to the patient and 

 thus injure her. 



Women who are menstruating are prohibited from entering the lying-in room, 

 because the effluvia of the former might be transmitted to the patient and give 

 her fever or cause some other complication. 



In cases of difficult parturition, the husband steps over the patient two or 

 three times in order to cause delivery; and if this should not be sufficient, a 

 pair of drawers which has been worn by the husband is tied to the woman's hair 

 so that the smell of his father may cause the foetus to emerge at once. 



Where swooning occurs, and especially where there is haemorrhage, the hair 

 is bound in a tight knot, and the patient is not permitted to sit down, this to 

 prevent the spirit from escaping from the body. A colleague told me of a terrible 

 case resulting from this last superstition and witnessed by him in the Province of 

 Ambos Camarines a few years ago. The wife of a Chinaman had a post-partum 

 haemorrhage, caused by the retention of the placenta, and in order to stop the 

 haemorrhage, either the Chinaman himself or the midwife, or both, had the 



