ily
each month from January, 1904, to September, 1905, when it reached
its maximum, deaths occurring at the rate of 241.15 per thousand per
year. At this time the director of health was given charge of the
sanitation of this prison.

By remedying overcrowding, improving drainage, installing sewers and
regulating diet along scientific lines, the rate was reduced in six
months to 70 per 1000, and there it stuck.

A systematic examination of the stools of prisoners was then
made. Eighty-four per cent were found to be afflicted with at least
one intestinal parasite. Fifty per cent had two or more, and twenty
per cent had three or more. Fifty-two per cent of the total had
hookworm. Active treatment for the elimination of these parasites was
begun in one barrack, and after the work was completed it was noted
that there was much less disease there than in the remainder. All
of the thirty-five hundred prisoners were ultimately examined,
and intestinal parasites eradicated if present. The death rate then
dropped to thirteen to the thousand, and has remained at or near this
figure up to the present time.

I have already referred to the discovery of the cause of beri-beri,
and to the effect of the governor-general's order forbidding the
use of polished rice in government institutions or by government
organizations.

I subsequently made a strong effort to secure legislation imposing
a heavy internal revenue tax on polished rice, thus penalizing its
use. I failed, but such effort will be renewed by some one, let us
hope with ultimate success.

In Spanish days cholera, leprosy, smallpox and other dangerous
communicable diseases were constantly reintroduced from without. This
is no longer the case. The United States public health and marine
hospital service has stretched an effective defensive line around the
archipelago and has sent its outposts to Hongkong, Shanghai and Amoy,
to prevent, so far as possible, the embarkation for Manila of persons
suffering from such ailments. We now have the most effective quarantine
system in the tropics, and one of the best in the world. At Mariveles
there is a very large and complete disinfecting plant, and vessels
may also be satisfactorily disinfected at Cebu and Iloilo.

This quarantine service kept the Philippines free from bubonic plague
for seven years, and has repeatedly prevented the entry of pneumonic
plague, that most deadly of all known diseases.

A peculiar and shockingly disf