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Died in prison

Name not reported

died November 1906 · Bilibid Prison, Manila, Philippines (under US rule)

Ten or more prisoners held at Bilibid Prison in Manila, Philippine Islands, died in late 1906 within days of receiving cholera serum inoculations, according to newspaper reports of the time; one later account put the number at thirteen. The inoculations were part of a Bureau of Science test of 24 prisoners, meant to protect the prison against cholera. Governor-General Smith's dispatch to the War Department said a visitor had misplaced a bottle of plague culture with the serum, and investigating physicians said the virus had been contaminated with bubonic plague. Dr. William R. Moulden, a former resident physician at the prison, doubted that the inoculation itself caused the deaths and called them an accident.

Cause of death, as reported: Died in an accident (disputed). Officials attributed the deaths to an experimental cholera serum inoculation contaminated with plague culture, while former prison physician Dr. William R. Moulden doubts the inoculation caused them.

Reported by: Dr. William R. Moulden; Philippine authorities; Bureau of Science investigators (outside investigators); Governor-General Smith and Secretary Taft's report to the War Department; committee of scientists and Filipino committee (outside investigators); newspaper dispatches.

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