In November there was a slight recrudescence, but the disease did not again threaten to escape control and in February practically disappeared, there being but two cases during the entire month.
The return of hot, damp weather again produced a slight recrudescence, and scattering cases continued to occur until March, when the epidemic of 1902-1904 ended in Manila.
In view of the conditions which then prevailed and of the extreme risk of a general infection of the city water supply, which, had it occurred, would doubtless have resulted in the death of a third of the population, this is a record of which the Bureau of Health may well be proud.
The effort to prevent the spread of infection by maintaining a land quarantine around Manila proved entirely ineffective.

The disease promptly appeared in the provinces where the campaign against it was from the outset in charge of newly appointed Filipino presidents of provincial boards of health, aided, when practicable, by medical inspectors from Manila.
Before it was finally checked in Manila there were 5581 cases with 4386 deaths; while in the provinces, in many of which it necessarily long ran its course practically unhindered, there were 160,671 cases, with 105,075 deaths.
On the 27th of April, 1904, the Board of Health passed the following resolutions:-- "Whereas cases of Asiatic cholera have occurred in but three provincial towns of the Philippine Islands since February 8, 1904; and "Whereas only one case of Asiatic cholera has been reported as occurring any place in the Philippine Islands since March 8, 1904; and "Whereas the city of Manila was declared on March 23 to be free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; On motion "_Resolved_, That the islands composing the Philippine Archipelago are, and are hereby declared to be, free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; and "_Be it further resolved_, That the Commissioner of Public Health be directed to send a copy of these resolutions to the honourable the Secretary of the Interior, the Municipal Board, the United States Marine-Hospital Service, and the Collector of Customs." As a matter of fact, however, it later proved that cholera was endemic in certain swampy regions near Manila, and in 1905 we found ourselves with a new epidemic on our hands.
At the end of the second week, beginning August 23, there had been one hundred thirty-seven cases, as compared with one hundred twenty-five for the same period during the epidemic of 1902-1904.
However, the conditions for combating cholera were now far more favourable than in 1902.

Major E.C.Carter had at his own request been relieved from duty as commissioner of public health, and Dr.Victor G.Heiser, passed assistant surgeon of the United States public health and marine hospital service, had been appointed to succeed him on April 5, 1905.

Dr.Heiser was a highly trained officer of one of the most efficient services which has ever been organized for the combating of contagious and infectious diseases.
He had under him in the city of Manila a small but thoroughly trained body of twenty-four medical inspectors, of whom nineteen were Americans and five Filipinos.

Profiting by his previous experience and that of his predecessors in the Philippine service, he inaugurated a campaign which practically terminated the epidemic in Manila on February 21, 1906, [501] with a total of two hundred eighty-three cases and two hundred forty-three deaths.
This brief and decisive campaign reflects the greatest credit on all concerned with it.
The board of health had one great advantage in the fact that the San Lazaro contagious disease hospital had been completed.