Hardly a year goes by that some similar miraculous healer does not set up in business, and the supply of dupes seems to be unending.

While it is comparatively easy to combat disease in a place like Manila, what of the provinces, where in many cases there is not one physician to two hundred thousand inhabitants?

To meet this difficulty we have an organization of district and municipal health officers.  A district may include a single province or several provinces.  A district health officer is invariably a physician who has had reasonably thorough practical training in the work of public sanitation, usually at Manila.

He is supposed to spend his time in sanitary work rather than in treating sick individuals, but it is, of course, impossible for him always to refuse to treat such persons, and we encourage gratuitous work for the poor when it can be carried on without interfering too seriously with more important duties.

Presidents of municipal boards of health may exercise jurisdiction over a single municipality or over several.  They are supposed to maintain good sanitary conditions in their respective towns, under the general supervision of district health officers, and to instruct their people in sanitary methods and their results, as well as to devote a certain amount of their time to the relief of the suffering poor.

On the whole it must be admitted that while this system has accomplished much, it has fallen far short of accomplishing what it should.

Men like Dr. Arlington Pond of Cebu have wrought marvels, and have conclusively demonstrated the fact that it is not the system that is at fault.  Of our thirteen district health officers, ten are Filipinos.  They are, with few exceptions, letter-perfect.  They know what they ought to do, but as a rule lack the initiative and the courage to do it.

Recently after discovering exceptionally bad sanitary conditions in several towns of the province of Misamis, I demanded an explanation of the district health officer, an exceptionally well-educated and intelligent Filipino physician.  I found, as I had anticipated, that the sanitary regulations of his towns left little to be desired, but that they were absolutely ignored.

I asked him what sense there was in paying his salary if he failed to remedy such conditions as I had discovered.  He replied that if he were really going to compel people to clean up, it would be necessary to begin with the provincial governor, whose premises were in a bad state.  When I suggested that in my opinion the provincial governor would be the best possible man to begin with, the doctor evidently thought me crazy!

It is as yet impossible for the average intelligent Filipino to understand that the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, should be treated alike.

It often happens that a province asks for an American health officer, or a Filipino demands the services of an American physician.  My invariable procedure in such cases has been to request that the application be made in writing.  For some mysterious reason the petitioners are seldom willing to go on record.