889 The Philippine Journal of Science 1915 
The general death rate of 4 per cent is based upon the result 
of our work from the beginning of the institution, and therefore 
it is not the present death rate of our cases in the Philippine 
General Hospital, which is, of course, considerably less. 
Obstetrical teaching in this country used to be deficient in the 
extreme, as I have already stated, due to the fact that the instruc- 
tion was entirely didactic and the students could, therefore, 
manage normal labor and perform obstetrical operations in 
theory only; but since the opening of the department of obstet- 
rics of the former Philippine Medical School, which has now 
become the College of Medicine and Surgery of the University of 
the Philippines, modern methods of instruction are in use, and 
the students are now given not only lectures, but also actual, 
practical demonstrations on the pregnant, parturient women. 
Besides demonstrations, the students are permitted to assist in 
all normal and operative cases of labor, and they are allowed 
to deliver normal cases in the presence of one of the residents 
of the department. 
The course in medicine in our university lasts five years. 
Obstetrics is taught beginning in the fourth year and continuing 
through the fifth or senior year. During these two years the 
students are required to be on duty, in rotation, for twenty-four 
hours in the Philippine General Hospital, ready to be called at 
any time to attend, together with the obstetrician on duty, all 
cases of labor both in the maternity ward and in the out-patient 
service of the department. In 1914 we had 8838 delivery and 
puerperal cases and 52 abortions. As there were only 21 fourth- 
and fifth-year students, and all our patients have practically 
been attended by them, it is safe to assume that each student 
has seen at least 42 cases of labor, some of which he delivered 
under the supervision of one of the members of the staff. The 
training of our students, therefore, compares favorably with that 
of the medical students in other up-to-date universities, if it 
does not give them advantage over the latter, as in most of the 
other universities the students do not usually have the oppor- 
tunity to see so large a number of normal and abnormal cases, 
the variety of which as well as the number of operations per- 
formed I have already enumerated. As a result of this new 
procedure in obstetrical teaching our students are already 
equipped, before graduation, with a sufficient practical knowledge 
of those matters which they will likely meet in private practice. 
From all that I have explained, we can conclude that the solu- 
tion of the obstetrical problems in the city of Manila is at the 
point of complete realization, as the women have already learned 
the advantages of medical assistance. It is now a common thing 
