258 OALDERON. 



and to watch the obstetrical operations in their respective districts. 

 The existing provisions regarding birth certificates should be strictly 

 enforced in each instance, and for this purpose the curates and pastors 

 of the churches in this capital should be required to comply with their 

 obligation not to administer baptism to any child without the previous 

 presentation of that document, in the same manner as death certificates 

 are required in the case of funerals. If this should, require an increase 

 in the number of municipal midwives in Manila, then, for the sake of 

 the poor, let the number be increased and, incidentally, the miserable 

 pittance of 20 pesos per month which is now their stipend. 



As soon as the obstetrical pavilion has been constructed, a circular 

 should be sent to all the practicing physicians in this capital, courteously 

 inviting them to bring to the clinic such maternity cases as they choose, 

 leaving them complete liberty of action for intervention should they so 

 require. In order to remove common prejudices and traditions, ad- 

 mission into the clinic should be permitted during the first year of its 

 establishment, not alone to the parturient, but also to two or three of 

 her nearest relatives, so that they may spread a knowledge of the un- 

 doubted advantages of confinement in the maternity ward as compared 

 with those of private dwellings. 



When the necessity for the establishment of a medical school for this 

 Archipelago was discussed before the Philippine Commission, the theory 

 was advanced that the project would result in a heavy burden on the 

 Insular budget, it being more feasible and economical to send young 

 Filipinos to America as Government students to study medicine. In 

 making this objection, it was not taken into consideration that instead 

 of an educational labor for the benefit of certain elements, a social labor 

 within the Philippine Archipelago would be undertaken, involving the 

 exceedingly important problem of infant mortality and of the practice 

 in the Philippine Islands of obstetrics in accordance with modern methods 

 and standards. 



