nking water. From time immemorial the people have
been obtaining their water for drinking purposes from flowing streams,
open springs or shallow surface wells.

The wells were especially dangerous, as it was the common custom
to wash clothing around them so that water containing disease germs
frequently seeped into wells used by whole villages. The results of
such conditions during a cholera epidemic can readily be imagined.

The drinking supplies of many provincial towns have now been radically
improved by the sinking of 853 successful artesian wells.

In many places there has been a resulting reduction of more than
fifty per cent in the annual death rate. Large sums are spent yearly
by the government in drilling additional wells,--a policy which is
warmly approved by the common people. The recent appropriations for
this purpose have been $255,000 for the fiscal year 1912, $60,000
for 1913 and $200,000 for 1914.

When we came to the islands, malaria was killing as many persons
as was smallpox. The mortality caused by it is now being greatly
reduced by giving away annually millions of doses of quinine, and by
draining or spraying with petroleum places where mosquitoes breed,
as well as by teaching the people the importance of sleeping under
mosquito nets and the necessity of keeping patients suffering from
active attacks of malaria where mosquitoes cannot get at them. Only
quinine of established quality is allowed in the market.

The results obtained in combating malaria are often very
striking. Calapan, the capital of Mindoro, was in Spanish days known as
"the white man's grave" on account of the prevalence of "pernicious
fever" there. To-day it is an exceptionally healthy provincial town.

At Iwahig, in Palawan, the Spaniards attempted to conduct a
penal colony. They were compelled to abandon it on account of
pernicious malaria, which caused continued serious mortality when
the American government attempted to establish a similar institution
there. Application of the usual sanitary measures has made it a
healthful place.

Old jails throughout the islands have been rendered sanitary,
or replaced by new ones. The loathsome skin diseases from which
prisoners formerly suffered have in consequence disappeared. The
practical results obtained in Bilibid, the insular penitentiary, are
worthy of special note. The annual death rate at this institution was
78.25 per thousand for the calendar year 1904. It increased stead