The victims
of the disease often immersed themselves in cold water when their fever
was high, and paid the penalty for their ignorance with their lives.
The average Spaniard was a firm believer in the noxiousness of night
air, which he said produced _paludismo_. [499] Most Filipinos were
afraid of an imaginary spirit, devil or mythical creature known as
_asuang_, and closed their windows and doors after dark as a protection
against it. Thus it came about that in a country where fresh air is
especially necessary at night no one got it.
Tuberculosis was dreadfully common, and its victims were conveying
it to others without let or hindrance.
A distressingly large percentage of native-born infants died before
reaching one year of age on account of infection at birth, insufficient
clothing, or improper food. I have many times seen a native mother
thrust boiled rice into the mouth of a child only a few days old,
and I have seen babies taught to smoke tobacco before they could walk.
Before our party left the islands in 1888, cholera had broken out
at a remote and isolated place. A little later it spead over a
considerable part of the archipelago. On my return in 1890 I heard
the most shocking stories of what had occurred. Victims of this
disease were regarded with such fear and horror by their friends
that they were not infrequently carried out while in a state of
coma, and buried alive.
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