PUL-OY (Breeze)
San Vicente Ilocos Sur (Philippines) to the World Series
Allergy and Environment:
Insights from the Writings of Arturo B. Rotor MD, First Filipino Allergist
"Allergy, the Silent Epidemic of our times is masked by the Good Life." -Dr. Arturo B. Rotor
of the same title pp 323-346
Dr Arturo B Rotor was a newspaper columnist Confidentially Doctor. He served as executive secretary of Presidents Quezon and Osmeña. A rare endocrine disease he discovered was named after him - Rotor Syndrome.
Dr. Arturo B. Rotor wrote several short stories, many became popular reading materials in high school and college literature, among them Dahong Palay, Twilight’s Convict, The Wound and Scar and Zita. In the waning years of his devoted life as a doctor, he continued to write, an outpouring from a wellspring of rich personal experience. Ateneo de Manila University Press compiled ten of these stories into a handy book with the title, The Men Who Play God. On the back cover is a curious brief description about the author. To wit:
Quotes from Dr Arturo B Rotor on allergy
“In the Philippine Journal of Science, a new orchid, Vanda Merrillii variety Rotorii is described by Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing. In Cecil Loeb’s Practice of Medicine, a new disease, “Rotor’s Syndrome,” is recognized. Both the disease and the flower refer to Arturo B. Rotor and highlight the disparate, often incongruous activities that marked his career.”
Perhaps it is beyond words to describe Dr. Rotor’s dedication to his profession and country. He served as Executive Secretary of the Philippine government-in-exile and member of the Cabinet, first under President Manuel Quezon, then President Sergio Osmeña. The Second World War was over and heroes deserved their peace. But not to Dr. Rotor. For doctors war goes on in preventing and attending to people who are sick, suffering and dying. War is improving the medical profession. He sought improvement of the medical profession by heading as Director of the UP Postgraduate School of Medicine, and surprisingly, by founding a relatively new field of medicine - allergology as a specialty, for which he is remembered today.
But the other side of Dr. Rotor’s life was one equally rich and fulfilling through the expression of the wonders of the right brain - naturalism, for he was an ardent lover of nature, both the landscape and the garden; and creativity through the auditory art of music, demonstrating mastery of some of the world’s best compositions as a celebrated pianist. (He graduated from the UP Conservatory of Music and UP College of Medicine
Dr. Rotor succeeded in welding together the ingredients of Maslow’s self-actualization that truly make a compleat person and a fulfilled individual. To him this is The Good Life and very rare indeed that medicine, nature and humanities are rolled in one. As I went through his works and honors he received I came to a conclusion that he is not only a general advocate of natural medicine, but a principal proponent of natural medicine - that has been side swept by the rush of modernization and apparent lack of concern over environmental issues. More and more people realize that our attitude towards the environment is an affront to rationality, contrary to our role as custodian of creation, and as the superior species - and in defining our attributes almost to a divine level as Man the Thinker (Homo sapiens), Man the Maker (Homo faber), Man the Player (Homo ludens) and the Man the Reverent (Homo spiritus) images
Breakthroughs in science and technology brought many things into our lives. It gave rise to electronics, that gave rise to the Computer. We are now spending more and more waking hours with the computer as if it were man’s best friend. Since its invention mysteries about life have been unfolding, among them the breaking of the code of life - that by examining and tinkering with the molecular structure of life through what we call as Genetic Engineering, we not only change the ways of nature, but the ways of God. Undeniably we are those Men Who Play God in Dr. Rotor’s book.
But come to think of the computer as the root of allergy and many ailments. Spending more time with the computer deprives millions especially children of participating in health promoting games and resistance-building exposure to nature. Our children are no longer children of nature; they are captives of education and media, of malls and cafes. They like to think that the mind is like the CPU or memory card, that the more information it acquires the better of is the individual. This is not so. Not when it pertains to health, not with the ability to arrive at correct decisions, not when and where survival is the name of the game. And not when it comes to matters of love.
Which reminds me a story of a young man who was in love. So he asked the computer, “What is love?” Whereupon came a prompt answer – not only one or two, but in many definitions technical and literary. “How does it feel to be in love?” He continued. This time the computer did not respond. He entered his query once more, and again, but still there was no response. After several attempts, the computer finally gave up. “I cannot feel.”
And here are our children spending most of their waking hours with an “intelligent” thing in the shape of a box, a thing that has no feeling at all! Even when the computer can tell you all kinds of the sickness in the world, it cannot comfort you. Because a robot has no feeling.
It may only provide a symbol. It can - in our mind - personify a friend, a loved one. Those who saw the movie Castaway, can recount how a lone survivor of a plane crash managed to live alone for four years in an unknown island with only one imagined companion – a foot ball he named Wilson
I wonder how little would one give importance to ailments and discomforts, while fighting for survival, and loneliness and despair. People who are placed in such a dilemma may not even care, and they may not even know the difference between being healthy or sick, much less between colds and allergy rhinitis, simple indigestion from candidiasis, rashes developed from different causes. Phobia, anxiety, disease, malnutrition, loneliness, are difficult to decipher and separate when one is suffering of physical, mental and emotional distress.
On the other side of the globe here is another box that is a darling. Young men adore it, so with a growing number of women. The spend so much time with it, in fact it steals away the best years of life and before one knows it, he has already grown too old; there is no way to part with it anymore. It is the car. It is that flashy car that metamorphoses now and then, and so precious it really is one is committed to “till death thou as part” even in the midst of financial crisis – and sometimes jealousy.
Indeed our world has changed a lot in the past century, and continues to accelerate as towns grow into cities, cities into megapolises, and opening settlements to an exponentially growing population of 7.7 billion worldwide.
Dr. Arturo Rotor gave a vivid scenario in his book of our fast changing life and lifestyle, of the rapid irreversible change of the environment, and the accelerated momentum towards ultimate destruction. He was referring to the Philippine General Hospital in Manila
“… the heavenly peace and quiet… the unmistakable tang of the evening breeze, long before you saw the surf breaking the moored fishing boats off Pasay
This is a passing scene. Never will it be seen again - this beautiful scene he described. Completely changed in character and purpose is the district once considered ideal hospital environment. The pulse of life and its amenities has quickened, and at its present rate of degradation the pulse is taking a reverse trend that goes with the sick and the dying. People as getting sick, or more sick. The irony is that the very elements that make a person sick, that delays his recovery and even predispose him to relapse is right in the vicinity of the country’s primer hospital. Dr. Rotor’s presents this disturbing one.
“At peak travel hours, which is before nine in the morning, to sunset, the combined cacophony of thousands of motors accelerating, horns blasting, tires screeching, reaches the one-hundred-twenty-decibel level. Above this basic din, boy-peddlers add a few more decibels touting cigarette or sweepstakes tickets, and by bus conductors announcing their routes: “Siga-ril-yo! San Andres Bukid! Crossing! Vito Cruz!” The din and confusion are indescribable.
“This must be what a mortally ill patient in delirium must go through; this must be the amorphous, unremitting jumble of hubbub, boom and barrage, without pattern or purpose or direction that finally pushes the mind over the brink of sanity.”
If there were a better breeding place of allergy, it would be the very same place given more time of neglect and inaction. And from there Pandora’s Box opens.
But this is not a single case. It is a typical one, it is the microcosm of many other cases, perhaps lesser degree or worst, older or more recent, that prevail in many cities around the world where the same recipe of allergy is supplied by the by-products of industrialization, high-rise buildings, affluent living style, that characterize progress, and exacerbated by lack or inefficient Governance.
But this is the pulse beat of trade and commerce that has taken over the healthy and vigorous biological clock; it is the signature of modernity that capitalism has brought into the life of modern man. This is the circulatory flow of money and goods, men and ideas, survival and affluence reaching all levels, nurturing the organism, determining what we gauge as growth and development.
It is a scenario that we see in other hospitals in the city, and in big towns as well, scenario of our own making. And yet, like artists before the canvas we have the power to create one that is beautiful and conducive to our well-being. But we do not or we refuse to do so, although we are aware that a healthy environment is primordial to good health and a happy life.
Before I proceed I would like to relate my most memorable encounter with allergy.
My family was vacationing in our ancestral home in San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, hometown of our family tree, which includes the family of Dr. Arturo Rotor. Our place is typically rural. It offers a perfect place for children to grow up with nature on one hand, and a place to retire on the other, far away from the “maddening crowd.” It is alternative to the busy lanes and hectic life in Manila
We had a sumptuous supper with talakitok, a popular marine fish. It got plenty of eggs to the delight of Leo Carlo, my youngest son who was then about 8 years old.
Suddenly in the middle of the night Leo Carlo woke me up. “Papa, I can’t breathe.” There was panic. His body was swollen all over, his eyes almost completely shut. Luckily I found anti-histamine in our First Aid Kit, and after giving him a tablet, took him immediately to the nearest hospital in Vigan, three kilometers away. When his allergy subsided, my wife and I decided to take Leo Carlo to Manila
This was the worst incident that happened to us when vacationing in our ancestral home. There is nothing unusual encountering common ailments and inconveniences because of the sudden change of environment. One time Anna nursed a painful knee. “It aches when it is cold.” Marlo would sneeze three times in succession, like the boy in Dr. Rotor’s story of “The Boy Who Always Sneezed Three Times.” It’s the dust. And we would say, “Bless you,” every time he sneezed. Cecille would take out a small bottle of herbal oil from Vietnam for tired muscles, then inhale its pleasing scent. On my part I always keep distance from flowering talahib, and when dangerously near a whole field, I throw straw or dry soil in the air to find out the direction of the wind. Then I would keep leeward to avoid the pollen-laden wind.
That incident Leo Carlo encountered made us think if it is really recommended to return and live in the province, away from the crowded city where our three children are used to. These questions brought doubt rather than assurance of good health.
Do our children have adequate preparation for a new environment and a different lifestyle? And when one grows old, is it really better to spend the rest of his life in the province?
At this point allow me to cite the case of Germany Germany was divided by a wall that ran through the center of Berlin West Germany was very progressive, while East Germany
The East Germans on the other hand, were living under extreme poor living condition, with housing and consumer goods always in short supply. They had to wait years to be able to buy a second hand automobile. In short
Then in 1990
Now, what has this historical event to do with allergy?
Scientists compared the two extreme environments and came up with startling results.
The Robert Koch Institute came up with a revealing finding: allergies were far more common among Germans from the affluent West. West German baby boomers were up to 83 % more likely than their East German counterparts to have allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and asthma.
Since there was no such differences in allergy rates were found in German born before World War II, the researches suspected that West Germany
West Germany represents a microcosm of a global Silent Epidemic, and countries that adopted the same lifestyle have more allergy cases than countries, which like East Germany, have remained, for one reason or another, underdeveloped.
What makes an affluent society have more allergy cases as compared to a marginal society?
Let me present some scenarios of our changing environment. Which of these fall under West Germany ’s condition? And which ones fit East Germany ’s?
1. As the growth of industrialization increases, so with the amount of pollution. Pollution is the by-product of industrialization. Industrialization is the key to modern living; pollution is its scourge. Many of us are aware of the fact that pollution has no boundaries; it rides on water and wind, it moves on land. It contributes to global warming, stirs climatic change and severe weather disturbances, not to mention the thinning of the ozone layer, worsening effect of acid rain and many others.
Pollution allergy cases arise directly from garbage, smoke from factories and vehicles, acid rain contact, sudden changes in temperature and humidity, ultraviolet rays below and near ozone hole.
2. Modernization brought about affluence, first in industrialized countries, and now in countries which followed the path of development of Western economic formula. People want goods and services beyond what they actually need.
Living above and beyond necessity has tremendous impact on the environment in the form of depletion of natural resources and pollution. Affluence is wasteful living.
3. Population increases geometrically, it is now 6.7 billion. At its present trend, another billion people will be added in the next 25 years.
New settlements, crowded cities, increasing population density predispose people to various forms of allergy.
4. As exodus to cities continues, the ratio of city dwellers to rural dwellers will soon reach equal proportion, and will favor the former thereafter. Already there are metropolises and megapolises, each containing as many as 20 million people ensconced under crowded condition. Meantime villages grow into towns and towns into cities.
People crowd subdivisions, condominiums, malls, schools, churches, parks, in great numbers sharing common lifestyles and socio-economic conditions. Thus predisposing them to common health problems and vulnerability to disruptions (brownout, water interruptions, force majeure).
5. Destruction of the environment as a consequence of increasing population and affluence, leads to loss of not only the productivity of farms, but loss of farmlands to industry and settlements, ultimately resulting in the irreversible destruction of ecosystems like lakes, rivers, forest, and coral reefs.
Loss of health of environment is loss of health of living things. Loss of environment is loss of life itself.
6. The ecosystems bear the brunt of development and progress. Wildlife is reduced in size and in biodiversity. Species are threatened to extinction as they are driven out of their natural habitats. The worse is when their habitats are lost forever.
Our existence and quality of our life depends on a complex interrelationship of the living world. Disturbing the balance of this interrelationship also disturbs the balance of biotic and abiotic components of the biosphere, thus affecting not only humans, but all members of the living world.
7. As wildlife shrinks, species are threatened or endangered. They need shelter, a new home.
Wee are adopting wildlife species, sharing with our homes, backyards and farms. Unaware they are transmitting deadly diseases like SARS, HIV-AIDS, Mad-Cow, Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Ebola, and Bird Flu which can now infect humans, allergies notwithstanding.
Avian influenza virus is found chiefly in birds, but infections with these viruses can occur in humans. The risk from avian influenza is generally low to most people. However; confirmed cases of human infection from several subtypes of avian influenza infection have been reported since 1997. Most cases of avian influenza infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry (e.g., domesticated chicken, ducks, and turkeys) or surfaces contaminated with secretion/excretions from infected birds. The spread of avian influenza viruses from one ill person to another has been reported very rarely, and has been limited, inefficient and unsustained.
8. “Good Life” has spawned obesity and other overweight conditions to millions of people around the world with USA
Victims suffer of complications in their health and difficulty in adjusting to a different life style. Because of their conditions they are merely spectators, rather than being participants, in games and other physical activities. Many are virtually immobilized by their condition.
9. Global warming is changing the face of the earth. As sea level rises shorelines are pushed inland, islands sink, lowlands turn to swamps, icecaps disappear, polar ice melts. In fact, there is need to re-draw local maps, and the map of the world as sea level continues to increase, glaciers disappear. More importantly there will be need to review and modify land use policy, settlement plans and relocation.
Adaptation is key to allergy resistance and immunity. Displacement of settlements and change in living conditions predispose people to ailments and allergies.
10. Globalization is the name of the game in practically all aspects of human activity – trade, commerce and industry, agriculture, the arts, education, politics, religion and the like.
The world travels on two feet- communications and transportation. The world has shrunk, so to speak. Traveling from one place to another across latitudes and longitudes predispose one to unimaginable kinds of ailments, allergies, and discomforts.
11. Homogenization involves pooling of genes through inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages resulting in various “mestizos” like Eurasian, Afro-Asian, Afro-American, Amerasian, and the like. Mélange of races is fast increasing in complexity as East and West continue to weld genetically.
Native genes provide resistance to pest diseases, adverse conditions of the environment. Native genes through intermarriage is beneficial, but the benefit they carry may be thinned out in the gene pool. Mestizos of subsequent generations are likely affected.
12. Science and Technology as the prime mover of progress and development has also brought doubt and fear to human’s future. The first breakthrough created the nuclear bomb, the second brought the globe to the size of a village with the microchip, and the third, Genetic Engineering now enables man to tinker with life itself.
A. Splitting of the atom - nuclear energy and nuclear bomb
B. Microchip - modern communication and transportation
C. Genetic Engineering – Genetically Modified Organisms, cloning, Gene Therapy, biological warfare.
Human conditions too, have vastly changed. Radiation related death still occurs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, more time is spent by our children with the computer than with nature, Gene Therapy – curing gene-link diseases before they are expressed – will revolutionized medicine. Naturally all these have repercussions on human health and welfare.
13. Pioneer industries are born out of these breakthroughs and related discoveries linking them with the business world and society, giving rise to in vitro fertilization or test tube babies, surrogate motherhood, Human Genome Project (HGP or gene mapping), multiple childbirth, DNA mapping, etc.
The prototype human robot is born, and he is not defect-free. In fact he is more dependent on medicine and could not possibly withstand the conditions of the natural environment as we do to the extent of pampering him. Indeed he will lead a very dependent life.
15. Green Revolution opened up non-conventional frontiers intruding the seas, deserts, watersheds, highlands, swamps. GR pioneered in Genetic Engineering, the splicing of genetic materials between and among organisms that may not be at all related, pooling desired traits. Thus the growth of GMOs and Frankenfood, and cloning experiments.
Aerophonics (farming rooftops), hydroponics, urban greening, reforestation, organic farming, are among the measures to bring nature nearer to settlements, and insuring people the bounty of nature.
16. Agriculture today depends heavily on Post Harvest Technology. To bridge the production source with the consumption end, the farm and the market, is no easy task, especially with perishable goods. Thus the proliferation of processed goods, supermarket, fast food chains, ready-to-eat packs, sophisticated culinary art.
Many food additives and adjuncts are allergenic, from salitre in longganiza to pesticide residue in vegetables, MSG in noodles to Aspartame in fruit juice, formalin in fish to dioxin in plastics.
17. Modern medical science is responsible in reducing mortality and in increasing longevity. But it is also responsible for many ills today, from genetically linked abnormalities to senility related ailments. It made possible the exchange of organs and tissues through transplantation, and soon tissue cloning.
Evolution culls out the unfit in any stage of life. This is true to all organisms. Only man, or his influence on other living things, can modify Darwinism.
18. Exploration has brought man into the fringes of our world – the depth of the sea and expanse of our Solar System, ushering the birth of inner and outer space science, and preparation of man for interplanetary travel.
We are learning to live outside of the confines of our planet earth. We have succeeded in probing the bottom of the ocean. We have put up a city in space - the Skylab. Now we are aiming at conquering another planet – a long distant goal of assuring the continuity of mankind after the demise of the earth. (Meantime we have yet to know the cure of the common colds.)
Insights from Dr. Arturo B Rotor’ s Short Stories
What are the implications of these environmental issues in the occurrence of allergy cases, in diagnosing and treating them as viewed from Dr. Rotor short stories? As I went though his works, I arrived at these scenarios, which provide us a glimpse of his thoughts and philosophy. I have taken liberty to use other references including mine to further my research on this matter.
As we unveil the mystery of allergy, shrouded by a changing environment, there will be need of young, talented and dedicated people in the field of medicine and healthcare. The number of patients that our doctor can attend increases everyday, with funds and facilities to use. In The Men Who Play God, the number of patients was reduced after screening the applicants. The conversation goes like this.
“We are not going through the qualifications of 163 patients this morning are we?
“No, sir, we have done some preliminary screening and we have narrowed the choice to three.”
“Fine. xxx Well, let’s hear some opinions. I understand some of you have investigated these cases carefully and have arrived at positive decisions.”
In the story one patient is a young girl, intelligent, just finished college and her whole life is before her. The second patient is the sole bread earner of a family of five. The third patient is a hospital attendant who has spent 17 years of his life caring for patients.
The chairman was silent for a long time. Idly he flicked the pages of the clinical charts in front of him, as if searching for words. At last he faced his staff squarely.
“Which one of you would like to play God today?”
Miracle and Medicine
There will be new cases doctors will study before these cases can be properly diagnosed and treated, more serious ailments, some life threatening - apparently related to allergic conditions. In Orchid of Five Wounds, this is how the attending doctor to a 16-year old patient felt.
Dr. Morales felt sympathy, compassion and respect for the blind patient. He even described the flower given to her by other patients, orchid of five wounds, that according to legend, it got its name from Christ nailed on the cross. Some drops of blood from his wound fell on this plant, hence the name. What physician could remain absolutely objective towards a 16-year old girl, an orphan, struck down by an incurable disease in the spring of her life?
The doctor was quite up-to-date in the literature of his specialty. xxx so far he had not obtained any information or development that he had not known before. He had gone far afield, from chemotherapeutic agents, to radioactive substances, to the newly discovered interferon, but none mentioned of a cure; the most that the investigators promised was remission which was another way of saying a postponement of the inevitable.In desperation the doctor had turned to non-medical or pseudo-medical literature… but he could not track down the original reports. What was left – faith healer? Prayer meetings? Water from Lourdes?
Inday, the blind patient, followed the singing of visitors and friends who literally brought Santa Cruz de Mayo into the hospital. She joined prayers and had light moments with other patients, while being treated and observed.
He told Inday about the promising result of her treatment. Inday turned her face quickly to him, “I shall see again? … I shall see my flowers, my aunt, my house and friends. I know I shall see again.”
The following week the heads of Ophthalmology, of Medicine and Neurology visited Dr. Morales and his patient and found her condition fast improving. The occurrence of spontaneous remission of malignant tumors is very rare. A case of arrested cancer is labeled a miracle. Inday’s case could be a simple matter of an immunological response, or a hormonal reaction.
Dr. Morales broke the good new to Inday, with caution , and not set her hopes too high. Xxx he stopped when he saw that she had closed her eyes tightly and that a few teardrops had escaped. He got up to leave and she released her hand. “I shall see you tonight.”
Her voice, when she finally found it, was hardly above a whisper. “No – I shall see you – I shall see you.”
Old Folk Medicine
Alternative medicine - or traditional medicine for its age-long history and custom-tested remedies, its quaintness to village communities, will continue to be the people’s way of obtaining medical treatment and attention, as the terms alternative and traditional imply. Mystery surrounding a disease may lead to faith healing, while formality of modern medicine often lacks of personal touch and attention that patients seek.
Thus we saw in the excerpts of Orchid of Five Wounds, the way a doctor treated a patient who at first was a hopeless case. Then, by miracle she made it through.
Inday would leave the hospital within the week – when would he she her again? xxx He saw her among her plants, talking to them, picking her flowers… Roses and maiden-hair fern and orchid like butterflies … and she would be in the middle of colors and fragrance. At first she would probably need thick corrective glasses, but these would gradually be reduced as her vision improved. He would bring her books and catalogues about plants and flowers … yes, the Orchid of Five Wounds – he had promised to tell her the complete legend of the miracle.
The theme of Dr. Rotor’s story about caring, may be seen at the border of loving, which is strongly evident in Zita, the story of a city-bred young man assigned teacher in an island, and there he provoked a young heart from among his students. Parting, as in the same case of our story, is a painful one, and leaves the reader an uncertain epilogue - longing and pleading in this case
Modern Living and The Good Life - Estranged
As people build their lives around the amenities of modern living, their lifestyle in the countryside lured into transformation akin to city life, the more they are exposed to all possibilities of allergy and related ailments. Here is a scenario of this so-called Good Life, which I discussed as a chapter in “Light from the Old Arch.”
“A quartz clock awakens you. You switch on the light, tune in the TV or radio, open the e-mail, cook breakfast, read the morning paper, dress up, take the elevator, drive the car, etc. All this is not surprising to most of us who live in urban centers.
But hear this. The milk you drink is genetically modified (human embryo hormone was injected into the cow to produce more milk), the corn flakes you eat comes from BT corn (corn with a gene of a bacterium – Bacillus thuringiensis), your potato fries is likewise a GMO and like your onion rings they were irradiated to extend their shelf life, your lettuce carries a trace of dioxin, the deadliest toxin ever synthesized, your tuna carries a residue of mercury, the microwave emits rays that are not good to health, the paint in your condominium contains lead, plastic deteriorates and you may not know it’s the cause of your allergy, so with synthetic fabric you are wearing.
There is nitrate (salitre) in corned beef and in tocino, MSG (monosodium glutamate) in noodles, aspartame in softdrinks, sulfite in sugar, potassium bromide in bread, antibiotic residue in poultry and eggs. And the list goes on, ad infinitum. Again we ask, ‘Where will all this lead us to?’” (AV Rotor, Light from the Old Arch)
Genetic Engineering Breeds Allergy
Perhaps the least understood realm of allergy is in the area of genetic engineering, the progenitor of Genetically Modified Organisms – plants, animals, protists – a number of them dubbed as Frankenfood, which we eat everyday. Already we have Genetically Modified soybean, potato, corn,, and GO milk, poultry and eggs. And we have barely scratched the surface.
“Genetic engineering is creating genes and genetic materials that threaten to pollute natural genetic pools worldwide. Once an organism acquires a foreign gene – now a GMO – it becomes a permanent source of genetic contamination and pollution. xxx Transgenic plants and animals will definitely contaminate natural gene pools, in effect creating blindly hybrids and crossbreeds from varying combinations of genes of both GMOs and non-GMOs.
“New bacteria, viruses, prions, other pathogens are more virulent, not only by their infective nature, but by mutation or reactivation of dormant and harmless ones. Antibiotic resistant markers (ARMs) in GM plants and animals can be transferred to other bacteria, including the harmful ones. These resistant bacteria could become gene sources of virulent forms. xxx Genetic manipulation introduces proteins from organisms never used as food, many of which could be the source of new allergens.” (AV Rotor, Living with Nature in Our Times)
Quaintness of Beliefs and Superstition
Advances in our understanding about diseases, specially about asthma and allergy, may be thwarted by superstitious beliefs and ignorance, and by inaction on the part of government, particularly in remote communities. The case of The Boy Who Always Sneezed Three Times, illustrates Dr. Rotor’s view on this aspect.
It happened when the baby was but a few weeks old. Mang Teban and Aling Doray and several relatives were in the room admiring the new baby. .xxx Suddenly the boy sneezed – three times. It evoked excitement. It was sign of good luck and fortune. They predicted Baby Garcia would someday become rich and famous.
A measles epidemic struck the village. And many children came down with the familiar fever and skin eruptions. Tigdas was nothing new to the people; it was part of growing up, unavoidable, and in fact of some advantage to the child. He gets it once and doesn’t get it again. The government sent the provincial health officer to investigate the epidemic was almost over; it was too late to vaccinate the children.
Baby Garcia was one of those who contracted the disease early, but Aling Doray recognized it only when hundreds of eruptions, as if a horde of mosquitoes had bitten him. She closed up one corner of their small bedroom, covering the door and window with thick blankets so that no light could enter.
Here she kept her baby, trying to make him eat, stroking his forehead and crooning him to sleep. The fever and rash soon abated, but a dry cough. When he was finally brought out of the darkened room, he looked like skin and bones His eyes were deeply sunk, his face shrunk like squeezed orange. He ate very little and did not pay attention to his surroundings. He was too weak xxx It seemed to take a long time to recover – and sometimes she doubted whether he would ever get well.
The one night as she dozed near the child she was awakened by his cry, which did not seem like the cry of a sick child. The mother held her son nearer the light. Suddenly he screwed up his face and sneezed – three times. (AB Rotor, The Boy Who Sneezed three Times )
Neurosis – Modern Man’s Disease
Man’s pursuit of knowledge, of affluence, of pleasure, are not necessarily of the ideals of sapiens (thinking), ludens (playing), faber (making) and spiritius (praying) that make him singularly rational. His failure and indifference constitute the antithesis of his decisions and actions, of his gains and achievements, his inability to keep his role as guardian of nature.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. Rotor’s short story, The Clinical Trials. It was the annual convention of the Society of Experimental Animals, the most important scientific event of the year, and every sector of society was represented: the guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, hamsters – even the pigs had their own delegation. And the subject is about human beings, not the other way around. Call it a fantasy, an allegory, science fiction, modern fable sort of.
“The convention arrived at the conclusion that the best subject is Homo sapiens. Of all of God’s creatures, there is no species more guilt-ridden, confused and self-destructive than man. Fear, remorse and frustration underlie his basic behavior, probably as a result of his forbears having been driven out of the Garden of Eden. He kills not for food, he eats when he is not hungry, he mates in or out of season. His suicidal tendencies are unique. While the lemmings drown themselves as a result of reduced food supplies, man will willingly cultivate cancer of his lungs by smoking poisonous plants, convert his liver into a hobnailed, atrophic mass of dead tissue with alcohol, or remove himself from the control of his mind with narcotics.
“The genes bearing these characteristics have not been identified, but seem to be transmitted paternally and maternally. An important feature of his personality is that the more developed the creature and the more successful, the more likely is he to suffer from neurosis. While among all other species, infection heads mortality and morbidity lists, among Homo sapiens, neurosis is the underlying cause of ninety percent of all illnesses. As a matter of fact, in the big cities and centers of population, the archetype of the successful executive is the hypertensive, the ulcer patient, the tranquilizer-dependent. We believe that for an in-depth study of tension or anxiety, in all its typical and atypical manifestations, man is a better subject than the frog, mouse or rabbit.”
x x x The results are clear-cut and not unexpected, as far as Capsule A is concerned. However, Capsule B presents some problems. Capsule B contains nothing but milk sugar, and yet it produced the same result as Capsule A.
More theories were offered, each more complex than the preceding: telepathic communication, secondary visual and auditory organs located in the arms or shoulders, and extra-sensory perception. But none could fully explain why milk sugar acts like a food when taken as food, and sometimes like a tranquilizer when taken as an anti-depressant. The author of the report requested to clarify the technique used in the determination of the low-density lipo-proteins? xxx
“The scientific forum was over. It had been stimulating, it had approved a new drug, and it had advanced medical knowledge. Except for one minor detail, it could have been one of the countless scientific meetings being held all the time everywhere in the world. By human beings.” (AB Rotor, The Clinical Trials)
Shangrila Myth
We can’t hide away from human miseries even in Shangrila America America
“America
Dr. Ramos continued.
“During the years I have spent in the States, I have met many of our countrymen … some have kidney trouble, high blood pressure; their joints are stiff and creaking, their eyesight fading.
“But most are free of diseases. The symptoms they complain of are not caused by bacteria, or virus or tumor cells or allergy. It all comes out when I tell them that they are healthy and have five or ten more years of life.”
‘Doctor, I want to go home. I want to see the old country before I die.’
The old gene, I suppose – the one that made us human and rational – prevails at the end, after all.
Quite often it is disease, it is age that open to us the realities of life.
x x x
_____________________________________
ARTURO B. ROTOR (1907- 1985)
Rotor is a unique combination of writer, musician and physician who was once upon a time before the war one of the country’s most active and distinguished writers of short stories. His stories were so highly regarded that the first publication of the Philippine Book Guild was a collection of his stories called The Wound and the Scar (1937). But since he exchanged his pen for a stethoscope he has not done any writing except making out prescriptions for his patients. And the reason he gave is contained in a letter he wrote to Alejandro R. Roces:
“. . . I am no longer young, and because when I entered the practice of medicine I discovered suddenly that I did not possess the vocabulary to record or describe what I saw. I could write vividly enough about characters which existed in my imagination. But when I saw them in my clinic and noted the caught breath or measured the quickening pulse, I found myself inarticulate. I knew then that what I had written before was written neither with understanding nor with compassion. And so I am learning how to write all over again. . .”
Like Roces, Rotor is from Manila Burgos Elementary School Philippines
Though Rotor has faded out of the literary horizon, The Wound and the Scar still sustains his reputation as a writer. The title is of course indicative of the author’s medical background. Of the eleven stories in it, six are about doctors and the rest on varied subjects ranging from flowers to music and from journalism to bucolic life. One of them, “Dahong Palay,” won first prize in a story contest sponsored by a local daily before the war, but the best of them, in spite of the author’s courageous admission of his limitations as a writer, is the medicated stories based on his experiences as a medical practitioner.
Reminiscent of Emerson’s indictment of the American scholar, Rotor once stirred a literary controversy with a speech, “Our Literary Heritage,” delivered before the first Congress of Filipino Writers’ League in 1940. He accused Filipino writers in English of lacking social consciousness and advocated for a dynamic proletarian literature to offset the timid and anemic literature being produced then by local writers. He lamented their art-for-art’s-sake attitude and their emphasis in form and pattern that have blinded them to the vital issues that affected themselves and their country.
“While the rest of the country is talking about the slums of Tondo and the peasants in Central Luzon,” he said, “our poets still sing ecstatically about the sunset in Manila Bay
All of Rotor’s stories were written before the war when short-story writing had barely shed off its swaddling clothes. And yet some of them are some of the best written in this country with hardly any trace of craft amateurism. Others, however, display conspicuous evidence of theatricalism and other traces of romanticism. The over-rated “Zita,” for example, is very Byronic, while “Dahong Palay” melodramatic and contrived. But these minor flaws hardly tip the balance, which is more on the merit side. The best stories of Rotor are the realistic, plotless ones where things happen in an apparently casual sequence of events where incidents are seen and suggested rather than planned one after another to follow a regular order of occurrence and climactic ending. His training as a physician evidently schooled him in realizing that all things, however trivial, are in themselves important, that a casual remark or a seemingly trifling incident all contribute to the flow and force of the stream. This accounts for the sometimes mountain of details in the stories that seem unrelated and unnecessary but which in reality all fit in the complete picture.
Rotor the writer developed side by side with Rotor the physician. His stories gradually came to depend more and more on actual observations and experiences for materials than on contrived plots. Imagination gave way to the reality of life. He stopped studying life from books and took lessons from those that came to him in pain. He wrote about what he saw and experienced. He became more autobiographical. Thus we see Rotor the socialite in “Color of Her Nails,” Rotor the musician in “Dance Music,” Rotor the flower lover in “Flower Shop,” and finally Rotor the doctor in “Convict’s Twilight” and in other stories.
Rotor was in the United States Washington and waded on the beach in Leyte with General MacArthur’s liberation forces in 1944. At present he is practicing his profession and teaching medicine at the University of the Philippines
An Anthology with Biographical and Critical Introductions
- Arturo G. Roseburg 1958
References
1. Ansorge R and E Metcalf et al (2001) Allergy Free Naturally Rodale Inc NY, Hampton JK (1991) The Biology of Human Aging, Wm C Brown Publishers
2. Jacobson E (1964) You Must Relax, McGraw-Hill 270 pp
3. Miller GT Jr (2004) Living in the Environment 7th Edition, Wadsworth Publishing, California
4. Radyo ng Bayan Lecture Series (May 2003 to July 2008) Towards Functional Literacy, DZRB 738 KHz. Philippine Broadcasting System, Bureau of Broadcast, QC
5. Raven PH, Berg LR and GB Johnson (2003) Environment 2nd edition Saunders College Publishing NY
6. Rotor AB (1983) The Men Who Play God: A Collection of Short Stories Ateneo de Manila University Press
Rotor AB (1983) The Wound and the Scar Cacho Hermanos, National Book Store
8. Rotor AV (2000) Light from the Old Arch UST Publishing House
9. Rotor AV (2003) The Living with Nature Handbook. UST Publishing House
Rotor A V (2007) Living With Nature in Our Times, UST Publishing House
Roseburg AT (1958) Pathways to Philippine Literature Phoenix
12. Time (2007) Global Warming (The Causes. The Perils. The Solutions. Then Actions: 51 Things You Can Do) Time Inc.
Time Magazine (2000-2008)
wikipedia.org/wiki/allergy
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/allergy
www.medicinenet.com/allergy
www.allergyuk.org/
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