#OnThisDay August 27, 1930, The Bureau of Health reports that during the past four months, a total of 1,956 died out of the reported 3,398 cholera cases, mainly in the Visayas.
This nightmare started on March 20, 1902. Two cases resembling cholera were admitted at San Juan de Dios Hospital for treatment. Hospital physicians immediately notified the Board of Health and confirmed the diagnosis.
In ten days, the cases ballooned to 102 with an astounding death rate of ninety per cent.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, the Board of Health carried out Government Order 66, which called for the burning of infected nipa huts.
The Americans (the Philippines was colonized by the Americans in 1898 to 1946) advocated cremation of bodies, outlawing of funerals, and land quarantine. All these foreign actions conflicted with Filipino customs of funeral visits and visiting of the sick. During these epidemic years, people were not educated on how to prevent cholera from spreading. The contaminated water supply, rampant defecation in the rivers, and lack of hospitals contributed to the rapid spread of the disease.
As the epidemic raged on, the American health commissioners were helpless against the disease. The first health commissioner Lieut. Col. L.M. Maus could not handle the strain and suffered a mental breakdown. His replacement Dr. Frank S. Bourns stayed on for only a month and resigned to pursue his own business interests. The 1902–1904 cholera epidemic claimed around 200,000 lives in the Philippines including revolutionary hero and first prime minister Apolinario Mabini.
With Dr. Victor Heiser’s assumption of the health post in 1905, he demanded and got “dictatorial†powers to enact sweeping changes. The Health Department launched a compulsory vaccination campaign on smallpox and cholera for adults and schoolchildren alike, improved on the sewer system, and provided a safer water supply.
In the Visayas, in 1923, there have been second wave of the epidemic, one reaching its peak in 1925, the second outbreak starting in the year 1930 and continuing for five successive years, i.e., until 1934, during which period the disease prevailed in the central, densely populated archipelago.
In November 1933, the disease was mostly present on the west coast of Bohol Island and the opposite east coast of Cebu Island and spread to the east coast of Negros Island.
In Bohol, the priests and the Boholanos insisted that prayers and masses should be the cure during epidemics, while the Bohol Provincial Board passed a resolution in 1923 establishing a provincial hospital during the term of Governor Juan S. Torralba, and campaigned for improved sewer system and safer water supply. The cholera epidemic slowly disappeared in the Visayas Islands early in 1934.
References:
1. Manuel D. Duldulao, A Century of Philippine Legislature, 2007, Vol. I, p. 217
2. 1900s: The Epidemic years Archived 2005, Society of Philippine Health History
3. “Choleraâ€, World Health Organization (WHO) Monograph Series, 1959
4. Bohol Provincial Library Archives
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