The Bontoc Igorot by Albert Ernest Jenks
page 94 of 483 (19%)
page 94 of 483 (19%)
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people to enter the afflicted settlement. The ravages of typhus and
typhoid fever may be imagined among a people who have no remedies for them. The diseased condition resulting each year from eating new rice has locally been called "rice cholera." During the months of June, July, and August -- the two harvest months of rice and the one following -- considerable rice of the new crop is annually eaten. If rice has been stored in the palay houses until it is sweated it is in every way a healthful, nutritious food, but when eaten before it sweats it often produces diarrhea, usually leading to an acute bloody dysentery which is often followed by vomiting and a sudden collapse -- as in Asiatic cholera. In 1893 smallpox, ful-tang', came to Bontoc with a Spanish soldier who was in the hospital from Quiangan. Some five or six adults and sixty or seventy children died. The ravage took half a dozen in a day, but the Igorot stamped out the plague by self-isolation. They talked the situation over, agreed on a plan, and were faithful to it. All the families not afflicted moved to the mountains; the others remained to minister or be ministered to, as the case might be. About thirty-five years ago smallpox wiped out a considerable settlement of Bontoc, called La'-nao, situated nearer the river than are any dwellings at present. About thirty years ago cholera, pish-ti', visited the people, and fifty or more deaths resulted. Some twelve years ago ka-lag'-nas, an unidentified disease, destroyed a great number of people, probably half a hundred. Those afflicted were covered with small, itching festers, had attacks of nausea, and death resulted in about three days. |
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