This he did with promptness and despatch, the number of cases for August being but seven hundred twenty as against thirteen hundred sixty-eight for the previous month.  On the 8th of September, having brought the disease under control at Manila, he insisted on resigning in order to attend to his private affairs, which were suffering from neglect, and his resignation was reluctantly accepted.

Dr. Bourns’s remarkable success in dealing with a very difficult situation was largely due to his ability to devise measures which, while thoroughly effective, were less irritating to the public than were those which had been previously employed.

The policy which he had inaugurated was followed by his successor with the result that the cases fell to two hundred seventy-five in September and eighty-eight in October.  In November there was a slight recrudescence, but the disease did not again threaten to escape control and in February practically disappeared, there being but two cases during the entire month.

The return of hot, damp weather again produced a slight recrudescence, and scattering cases continued to occur until March, when the epidemic of 1902-1904 ended in Manila.

In view of the conditions which then prevailed and of the extreme risk of a general infection of the city water supply, which, had it occurred, would doubtless have resulted in the death of a third of the population, this is a record of which the Bureau of Health may well be proud.

The effort to prevent the spread of infection by maintaining a land quarantine around Manila proved entirely ineffective.  The disease promptly appeared in the provinces where the campaign against it was from the outset in charge of newly appointed Filipino presidents of provincial boards of health, aided, when practicable, by medical inspectors from Manila.

Before it was finally checked in Manila there were 5581 cases with 4386 deaths; while in the provinces, in many of which it necessarily long ran its course practically unhindered, there were 160,671 cases, with 105,075 deaths.

On the 27th of April, 1904, the Board of Health passed the following resolutions:—­

“Whereas cases of Asiatic cholera have occurred in but three provincial towns of the Philippine Islands since February 8, 1904; and

“Whereas only one case of Asiatic cholera has been reported as occurring any place in the Philippine Islands since March 8, 1904; and

“Whereas the city of Manila was declared on March 23 to be free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; On motion

“Resolved, That the islands composing the Philippine Archipelago are, and are hereby declared to be, free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; and

“Be it further resolved, That the Commissioner of Public Health be directed to send a copy of these resolutions to the honourable the Secretary of the Interior, the Municipal Board, the United States Marine-Hospital Service, and the Collector of Customs.”