01-044 [Family]
1882.10.05 Bulacan
From: Silvestre Ubaldo
To: José Rizal
Ravages of the cholera in Bulacan — Its origin — Death of his sister María.
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Bulacan, 5 October 1882
MR. JOSÉ RIZAL
MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW,
I received your letter dated 17 August on the first of this month and I am informed of its content.
I should be grateful if I’m recommended to Mr. Costa, but I’m sure that with God’s mercy I shall be returned to Calamba, because my uncle is working for me. My transfer seems to be certain. I’ll write you about the result.
Since 4th Julv Olimpia has been here in Bulacan.
We are grateful to God that you are well there and you do not get sick. This is our desire and what we ask the Lord.
I inform you that my sister María died at Manila last September. Her sickness was cholera. She was already well, but on the eleventh day she had a relapse and she died. This is the prevailing sickness in Manila that is causing much hardship since 20 August. It began in San Nicolás, spread to Tondo, and in those towns[1] from 30 to 40 died daily, four or five dying in one house alone. Those who brought this disease were two crewmen of the steamer Eolus from Zamboanga where there was an epidemic. When the crewmen went ashore at San Nicolás they spit in a small house. The next day all the occupants of that house, as well as the crewmen, died. In accordance with the decision of sanitary boards that house was ordered burned. From that time, the epidemic spread to whole Manila, but there not as many people died as in San Nicolás and Tondo. Then it reached Bulacan. At this capital there are deaths daily, as many as 25. Even Muñiz, the prosecuting attorney here, caught it at three o’clock in the morning and by noon he was dead. Baliuag, Quingua, and Malolos are the hardest hit here. In each of these towns about 30 die daily. This epidemic spread almost all over the Philippines so that the General ordered many flannel blankets, as well as medicine, in Hongkong and sent them to the provinces for the sick. Almost every day the General goes around the public markets in Manila and orders spoiled fruits, meat, or fish to be thrown away. Every town has a hospital where the sick are gathered. The university, San Lázaro, the house of Dr. Marti in Meisic were turned into hospitals. Here in the provinces the chapels are the hospitals. Because of this sickness the drugstores’ supply of manzanilla flower was exhausted and there is a shortage of cognac in the groceries and its price became doubled and none can be obtained. All the colleges were ordered closed and all students including the seminarists were sent home; but the students of medicine in the third year were assigned to the hospitals with pay and if you were here, you would also be compelled to serve. All the dead, even Spaniards whoever they may be, are not taken any more to church but they are immediately taken to the mountain without fees. The officers of justice go around the town, ordering the cleaning and taking away the dead immediately. They have their own cart and stretcher, the cart for the dead, and the stretcher for the sick. However, if the family refuses to give up the body they let it alone, but they order the dead, even the rich, to be brought down and they are not put in coffins. Now it is subsiding; here in Bulacan, since the 4th, there have been no cases.
We are well thank God; so are all of them at Calamba according to their letter to us. We here drink manzanilla and tea as our drinking water, and smudge and clean the house constantly. Enclosed is Olimpia’s letter with news.
Command your brother-in-law,
S. UBALDO
[1] San Nicolás and Tondo, here called towns are really districts of Manila