Cholera and the origins of the American sanitary order in the Philippines

Abstract

The 1899-1902 war of resistance and the 1902-1904 cholera epidemic belong to two distinct series in Philippine historiography. The fight against the cholera of 1902-1904 has been represented as a drama whose theme is American heroism and medico-sanitary skill. Cholera was introduced into the Mariquina valley east of Manila by troops sent to guard against infection of the Manila water supply. Cholera claimed its victims from all levels of society, including American soldiers and residents, prominent Filipinos, Chinese, and Spaniards. Developments in nineteenth-century medicine contributed to the convergence of colonial warfare and disease control. In the United States, sanitary reform proceeded in earnest from the 1870s, spurred on by the public's fears of a recurrence of the cholera visitations of the 1830s and 1850s. By about 1905, control of water or food supplies and of insect vectors had checked typhoid, cholera, yellow fever and malaria.