﻿IX, B, 2 Sanitary Survey in Mindoro 185 



8. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



The following extract from the preliminary report of the 

 commission is a brief summary of the health conditions of the 

 west coast of Mindoro, with the important recommendations 

 for their improvement. 



STATEMENT OF CONDITIONS 



The sanitary problems of the Mindoro properties are a part 

 of, and inseparable from, similar problems of the municipality 

 of Pandorocan and the whole west coast of Mindoro. The 

 municipality has a population of some 5,500 people, of which 

 about 3,200 are employees or otherwise inhabitants of the camps 

 of the corporation located at San Jose. 



Both the sanitary and the social and economic problems 

 must be solved by experimentation, because pioneer work 

 is required under conditions which have no precedent. To give 

 an idea of the magnitude of these problems, it is only necessary 

 to state that they are equal to, or greater than, those encountered 

 in the construction of the Panama Canal. 



The San Jose interests have an area of between 210 and 260 

 square kilometers of territory, which is bounded on the east 

 by the mountains of Mindoro, the inhabitants of which are 

 wild men who appear to be very extensively infected with malaria. 

 The property is continuous along the coast line with a number 

 of the most insanitary barrios, whose inhabitants are very 

 extensively infected with malaria, tuberculosis, hookworms, and 

 other tropical diseases. In the Canal Zone, with a slightly larger 

 geographical area than the San Jose Estate, all efforts are 

 centered on the digging of the canal, while in San Jose the 

 naturally more complex problem is amplified, because of efforts 

 to cultivate the land with irrigation. Finally, very unwise 

 administration in the early part of the development work of this 

 location has added materially to the amount of infection, partic- 

 ularly malaria, which must be eradicated before satisfactory 

 health conditions can be established. 



The studies of the commission may be briefly summarized as 

 follows : 



The incidence of malaria among the inhabitants of San Jose 

 is approximately 35 per cent of the total population, and this 

 infection is kept up by recurrence in old malaria cases and by 

 constant introduction of new cases from without and from 

 outlying camps and by new infections among the inhabitants 

 of San Jose. 



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