SANITARY CONDITIONS AND NEEDS. 433 



desire for better things for their countrymen. This part of the population 

 as compared with the whole, however, is inconsiderable and it must be 

 admitted that even in the case of the wealthy and intelligent, sanitary 

 matters which really count are quite neglected. 



Let us take for example a certain provincial capital less than one 

 hundred miles from Manila, The population is between 8,000 and 

 10,000 people. The provincial government offices, prison, and high 

 school are located here and the governor and members of the provincial 

 board reside in the town. The town is situated upon the bank of a 

 river which serves as a sewer and water supply, as a universal bath-tub 

 for people and animals, and as a wash tub for the clothing of 10,000 

 people. Passing through the streets we encounter chickens, ducks, 

 goats, half-starved dogs and unnumbered pigs, many of them with 

 decorations of human faeces on their heads and backs, foraging for 

 garbage or the droppings from passing horses and carabaos. Markets 

 and tiendas expose their wares of fruits, cooked rice, fresh meats, fish, 

 vegetables and crude sugar to the clouds of dust in the streets and flies 

 swarm in thousands over the sticky sugar and bloody meats. Dogs and 

 cats walk over the exposed vegetables and natives, with fingers whose 

 condition may be imagined rather than described, handle the food ad 

 libitum. Screens against flies are everywhere ahsent, Defecation is 

 performed in public at all times upon the streets and river banks. With 

 one exception, the water-closets in all homes but those of the Americans 

 are of the pig-flushing variety. 



Stagnant pools of waste water are found beneath many houses, serving 

 as pig-wallows or as mosquito-breeding places. The ubiquitous and 

 iniquitous pig feeds upon human excrement and in the end serves as 

 food for the people. Nudity, under the law, is a punishable offense, but 

 boys and girls of the age of pubescence parade the streets, practically 

 naked, before the eyes of American women and children. In this town 

 there are 27 Americans variously connected with the Civil Govern- 

 ment, Educational Department, Constabulary, and Army. There is 

 annually expended for salaries of American teachers stationed here 

 (most of them in the provincial high shool) more than 20,000 pesos, 

 Philippine currency, while for practical sanitation, exclusive of extraor- 

 dinary expenditures for the suppression of epidemic diseases, I am unable 

 to learn of any outlay. A native physician, formerly employed as 

 municipal physician at 30 pesos per month, is now filling the office of 

 district health officer. He draws a salary of 200 pesos per month. He 

 is the sole official representative of sanitation and he is absolutely inactive 

 so far as local conditions are concerned. There is no municipal physician. 



It is interesting to know that upon the municipal statute books of 

 this particular town there are ordinances, with penalties for their viola- 

 tion, covering practically all of the abuses which I have named. These 



