252 CALDERON. 



patient's coil of hair drawn very tight and by means of it they hung her from 

 one of the beams of the bouse. The woman died in horrible convulsions while 

 thus suspended. 



In China the umbilical cord is not cut until the placenta has been expelled, 

 for fear that the latter might rise, envelop the heart and kill the patient. Many 

 Filipino midwives. influenced perhaps by this superstition, do not cut the umbilical 

 cord until the placenta lias been delivered, leaving the child sometimes for hours 

 between the mother's thighs, covered with the sebaceous matter, meconium, 

 amniotic fluid, blood and freces. The placenta is cremated and then administered 

 to the patient. The umbilical cord is burned, the ashes to be used as a remedy 

 for stomach ache in children. 



In China, when the parturient is in a very serious condition due to haemor- 

 rhage, a chicken is killed, cut open and applied to the patient's breast to give 

 her life. I have seen this done in the town of Ormoc, Leyte, when I was municipal 

 physician in that settlement. 



If the foetus has coils of the cord around the neck, superstition has it that 

 the boy will become a great man. as this condition recalls the Chinese mandarins 

 and great dignataries who have bands covered with symbolic ornamental dragons 

 wrapped around their bodies. 



5IODEKX ADVANCES IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



I wish here to render a tribute of consideration and affection to our 

 colleagues who preceded us in the practice of medicine in these Islands 

 and who planted in them the first milestones of rational obstetrics, 

 according to the knowledge of that epoch. I do not allude particularly 

 to the Spanish physicians, called fisicos, who, together with the troops 

 and missions from Spain, landed each year from the famous Acapulco 

 galleons, nor to those who came to this country between the years 1764 

 and 18(39 with the expeditions organized at the port of Cadiz, sailing for 

 Manila, by way of the Cape of Good Hope. These men formed such 

 a small minority and had such scanty knowledge of obstetrics that their 

 influence may well be disregarded in the evolution of this important 

 branch of medicine in the Philippine Islands. 



I wish to speak of the foreign, Spanish and Filipino physicians who, 

 beginning in the years 1870, established themselves in Manila and the 

 provincial capitals, shedding the first rays of the light of medical science 

 on the chaotic state of affairs then prevailing. Among these pioneers 

 of happy memory, I make special mention of the Englishmen Fullerton 

 and the Burke brothers, the Germans Xeizen and Koeniger, the French- 

 man Permantier, the Portuguese Silva Magalhaes, the Spaniards Ginard, 

 Marti, Meynet, Nalda, Pina, Torrejon, Sacristan, Mallen, Farinos and 

 others who practiced medicine in this country. They are all deserving of 

 gratitude and praise, because they contributed their grain of sand to 

 the erection of the scientific edifice of obstetrics in the Philippine Islands. 



The cooperation of Filipino physicians in the scientific labor already 

 initiated was not long wanting after the creation in this capital of the 

 faculty of medicine of the University of Santo Tomas. Beginning with 



