﻿IX, B, 3 Calderon: Medical Geography of the Philippines 209 



of all marshy places, the education of the people in the use 

 of the mosquito net, and the gratuitous distribution of quinine. 



Dysentery in its bacillary and amoebic forms is the necessary 

 consequence of the imbibition of the contaminated waters con- 

 sumed by the majority of our people, and this affection may be 

 prevented by the construction of artesian wells. 



Beriberi and all forms of gastroenteritis so common in our 

 children may be diminished by the establishment of milk stations 

 in the provinces, and the wide spread of skin diseases among 

 our masses may be controlled by personal cleanliness and 

 hygienic modes of life. 



The above is a brief summary of the diseases which on account 

 of their geographical importance occupy a prominent place in 

 the pathology of the diseases found in these Islands. 



I fully appreciate the difficulty of the task of making a medical 

 geography of any region. In civilized countries more advanced 

 than ours, every enterprise of this nature has met with serious 

 difficulties and many obstacles; but these difficulties are even 

 greater in our country where the data of vital health statistics 

 are deficient and inaccurate, as you may have observed in the 

 tables which show that provinces have not more than two or 

 three diseases. The reason for this is not because these prov- 

 inces are more healthful than others, but because there is a lack 

 of data in the answers received to the questions distributed all 

 over the Islands. As long as we allow 80 per cent of our munic- 

 ipalities to exist without qualified physicians to direct the sanita- 

 tion of the towns where the illnesses of the inhabitants are not 

 properly diagnosed and as long as we do not succeed in estab- 

 lishing an efficient public-health service whose beneficial in- 

 fluence may extend all over the Archipelago, we can never 

 expect the present conditions of affairs to improve, for the 

 diagnosis in the death certificates is made by the municipal 

 secretary or in his absence by the municipal police, and such 

 certificates form the material available to anyone who would 

 undertake the difficult task of writing a medical geography of 

 the Philippines. 



Let us have faith, however, in the wisdom and patriotism 

 of our legislators, and let us hope that this condition of affairs 

 will not last forever, but that before long we shall have a 

 reorganization of the present sanitary system by which, by 

 means of a correct knowledge of the true medical geography 

 of the Philippines, we may perceive the effective diminution 

 of the mortality in these Islands. 



