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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