countryman to the best of his ability.

Many of the planters, especially such as are located in the coffee districts, have been badly handicapped by the partial destruction of their coffee plantations through cyclones, and by the low price for their product, since they have had to compete with South American coffee in the European and American markets. In addition to this economic disadvantage, the planters are also handicapped by the infirmity of their laborers, most of whom are sufferers from anemia, and few of whom are able to work without the immediate direction of a foreman. The economic and social condition of the planters is not a matter of particular interest to us in this connection, inasmuch as they are so situated that they enjoy all of the advantages of an advanced stage of civilization. The problem that confronts the progress of Porto Rico is to be found in the day laborer of the country districts. The following is taken from the book on Uncinariasis in Porto Rico, by Doctors Ashford and Gutierrez:

"Our patient has been in times past the jíbaro and will be in time to come. As we have seen already, while all country districts furnish an incredible number of sick, the great breeding places of necator americanus are the coffee plantations, and this is the home of el palido (the pale man) of Porto Rico.

"The jíbaro is a type to be well studied before we essay to interest him in bettering his own condition. Many have written of his virtues, many of his defects, but few, even in Porto Rico, have seen through the mist of a pandemic the real man beyond.

"Coll y Toste says that the origin of the word jíbaro proceeds from a port in Cuba (Jibara), and that it is composed of two words of Indian origin, jiba, meaning mountain, and ero, man. We cannot see the necessity of invoking this port of Cuba with the excellently applicable philology he gives us.

"Brau says that the term is applied to-day to a laborer, but that its true significance is 'a mountain dweller.'

"Our understanding of the term, as it is applied to-day, is a peasant, a tiller of the soil, a man whose life is not that of the town, and who lacks its culture. And when we say that a man is a jíbaro, we put him in a separate and distinct class, a class of country laborers. These people 'live now as they lived 100 or 200 years ago, close to the soil.' The jíbaro is a squatter and does not own the land upon which he builds his modest house, nor does that house cost him anything save the trouble of building it. It is a framework of poles, with walls of the bark of the royal palm (the yagua), with roof of the same material or of a tough grass which is used for thatching, and with a floor of palm boards. Generally the floor is well raised from the ground on posts, and the family is truly a poor and miserable one which is content to have an earthen floor. As a rule, there is but one room for a family, which rarely goes below five, and whose upper limit is measured by the accommodation afforded for sleeping. The cooking is done under a shed on a pile of stones. Weyl says that the house should be valued at about $20.

"The food of the jíbaro is poor in fats and the proteids are of difficult assimilation, being of vegetable origin, as a rule.

"He arises at dawn and takes a cocoanut dipperful of café puya (coffee without sugar). Naturally, he never uses milk. With this black coffee he works till about twelve o'clock, when his wife brings him his breakfast, corresponding to our lunch. This is composed of boiled salt codfish, with oil, and has one of the following vegetables of the island to furnish the carbohydrate element: banana, platano, ñame, batata or yautia.

"At three in the afternoon he takes another dipperful of coffee, as he began the day. At dusk he returns to his house and has one single dish, a sort of stew, made of the current vegetables of the island, with rice and codfish. At rare intervals he treats himself to pork, of which he is inordinately fond, and on still rarer occasions he visits the town and eats quantities of bread, without butter, of course.

"Of all this list of country food there are only three elements that are bought—rice, codfish, and condiments. Rice is imported from the United States and codfish from Nova Scotia. The bread he eats on his visits to town is made of American flour.

"This is a normal jíbaro diet. With the wage paid him he can get no better, but aside from this he is wedded to cheap bulky foods, chiefly for reasons to be stated, and is completely ignorant of the importance of certain foods which any hygienist would like to add to his bill of fare. If the normal food of the jíbaro, as stated, were his usual food, it would not be so serious a matter, nor would the jíbaro complain so bitterly of his wretched ration, but the fact is he does not get the menu detailed above save when he can be said to be prosperous. Only a few cents difference in wages will cut out the small proportion of animal proteids he obtains, the codfish, and a cyclone will drive him in sheer desperation to the town.

"Aside from all this, if wages were better, it is said, he would leave his ration as it now is and spend his surplus otherwise. This has not been given, however, a very earnest trial. He takes also more rum than he is given credit for by those who have accepted the formula that the jíbaro does not drink, but it is true that he is not usually intemperate in this sense. One of his vices is la mascaura (the wad of tobacco), and he believes the juice of the tobacco to be beneficial in warding off tetanus.

"The jíbaro, mountain bred, avoids the town whenever possible, avoids the genteel life of a civilization higher than that of his own. He instinctively tucks his little hut away in the most inaccessible spots; he shrinks from the stranger and lapses into stolid silence when brought face to face with things that are foreign to his life. He does this because he has been made to feel that he must do all that he is told to do by established authority, and he knows that this authority never takes the trouble to look for him unless it expects to get something out of him; because he is suspicious of outsiders, having been too often led astray by false prophets and disappointed by broken promises; because he realizes that he is not a free agent anywhere save in the mountain fastnesses. In other words, he seeks liberty in his home, freedom from the constant repression of those he recognizes as his superiors, and exemption from a repetition of deceptions that have been so often practiced upon him. He has always been made to stay strictly in his class, in the jíbaro class. Frequently when he tries to express himself he is laughed down, frowned down, or growled down. 'Tu eres un jíbaro' is not a term of reproach exactly, but it means 'You are not in a position to express yourself, for you are only a mountaineer. You know nothing of our world; you are still a child. Your place is under the shade of the coffee tree; the mark you bear is clear to everyone; you are a jíbaro.' Thus there is a great difference between the jíbaro and those who are not jíbaros, i.e., those who live in towns or those who command in the country. This distinction is neither made unkindly nor roughly. All the Porto Rican people are kindly and they love their jíbaros, but nevertheless they treat them as though they were children. And the jíbaro loyally follows his educated, emancipated fellow citizen, perfectly satisfied to be guided as the latter sees fit.

"Much of this guidance is excellent, and it is not our mission to