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Between 1882 and 1903 epidemic diseases ravaged the Philippines. This phenomenon has been observed before by Peter Smith (Xenos) and Norman Owen, among others, but Ken De Bevoise's portrayal and explanation of the crisis is by far the most comprehensive and meticulous to date. He systematically applies principles from the field of epidemiology in ways not normally undertaken by historians. More importantly, however, he bridges the gap between quantification and scientific application and the causality of history, and thus explains how social, economic, military and political influences spread disease.
His insights are very perceptive, and they help us to put into clearer focus Philippine events at the turn of the century. In the future, historians will have to treat this period against the backdrop of disease and dying that afflicted the lives of all who remained for any length of time in the archipelago. Every traveler and transient became the potential bearer of disease to be visited upon a population made vulnerable by prior isolation and weakened by the effects of late...