There is no information about the origin of the Guerrero lineage. The family was already well established in Ermita, then an independent parish, by the middle of the 19^th century – Manuel S. Guerrero’s grandchildren, Leon Jorge Guerrero, having built a substantial structure for a house made of strong materials there. For it is the tradition that this commodadious dwelling was one of the houses that withstood the destructive typhoon of 1879. This kind of building was a certain index that the Guerrero family belonged to the middle class. This paternal ancestor was in the employ of the Spanish government as a warehouse-keeper (Alma cenero dela Administracion de Rentas Estancadas) in the Pasig district from 1858 to 1868, when Queen Isabela was overthrown. He married Clara Leogrado, also belonging to a well-known family in the community, and out of this marriage two sons were born: Lorenzo and Leon. These two sons distinguished themselves in different fields: Lorenzo Guerrero in the fine arts and Leon Ma. Guerrero in science.

Of the two brothers, Lorenzo was the older. Of the fourteen children born of Leon Jorge Guerrero and Clara Leogardo, many died young of the disease called taon in Tagalog and cholera, the mass killers during the Spanish period. It was perhaps due to this traditional tender memory that Manuel S. Guerrero was urged in his career to devote his energy in unraveling the mystery behind the infant killer called taon. It is also most likely due to the diseases that plagued the country that motivated Leon Ma. Guerrero to pioneer in investigating, in a scientific manner, the medicinal properties of native plants found in the country, both during the Spanish and American regime.

Lorenzo Guerrero, the older of the two brothers, is remembered for his contributions to the development of painting both as a practitioner and art teacher.

Clemencia Ramirez, Manuel’s mother, is known to have loved books and reading and she cultivated painting, singing, and embroidery aside from her cores as a housewife. Some of her embroidery work, according to some members of her family, reached the court of King Alfonso XII of Spain. It was a big family she raised, nine children in all; however, as his was decimated by taon and disease, only three reached maturity. These were Manuel, Fernando, and Araceli. Fernando, the poet, is the family’s contribution to Filipino-Spanish poetry.

Manuel S. Guerrero was born at sunrise in the morning of January 8, 1877, in Ermita, being the fifth among nine children. It was an ideal life with, and an environment that was pleasant and healthful for the house was just a couple of hundred steps to the seashore of Manila Bay. In later years the older Fernando recalled how their after would take the children to the beach swimming and bathing and playing with toy vessels. Two churches were close by, besides the dozen or so in Intramuros which was just half an hour’s walk away. According to an earlier biographer, both his paternal and maternal ancestors were well known for their piety, honesty, stainless character and personal traits. Both religious and educational facilities were, to the great advantage and convenience of Ermita residents, close by and accessible for it should be remembered that most of the rising middle class families in the provinces had to move to the metropolis first before they could avail themselves of such educational and other facilities, which was the case of the Luna family, for example.

However, his mother died while Manuel was just a little over six years old and this

loss deprived the children of loving care and attention. Nonetheless, there were other understanding souls who helped raise the children to boyhood and there were his aunts Corinta Ramierz and Clarita Guerrero. The first was managing a escuela de primera enseñanza, a primary school, and it was from there that the young Manuel finished his primary education in Corinta Ramirez’s Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guia when he was but nine years old.

Manuel’s older brother, Fernando, was then schooling at the Ateneo Municipal, in his segunda enseñanza, and Manuel joined him there were he received his Bachiller en Artes inMarch 1894 with an excellent rating. From his former teacher, later his biographer, Fr. Clotet, it is known that he was an exemplary student garnering through the years 23 prizes and medals in all, either in classroom work or competitive exercises.

It is not clear what motivated Manuel S. Guerrero to enroll in the University of Santo Tomas College of Medicine which was then located in Intramuros, the Walled City. It is known, however, that his uncle, Dr. Leon Ma. Guerrero, was already a member of the Faculty there, being a professor of descriptive botany since 1887, a position which he held until 1897. The course was mainly geared towards discovering the medicinal properties and practical uses of native plants, and so, with his uncle as a most probable guiding spirit, the young student went into medicine. There was, of course, the well known fact that Filipino babies were being decimated by all sorts of disease, the most feared and alarming of which being taon. Doctors were puzzled for generations what could be the cause of such an ailment that endangered so many young lives at this helpless stage, for sucking babies just died before ever reaching their first birthday.

Manuel S. Guerrero was but nineteen and a half years old when the Revolucion of 1896 broke out. The Guerrero’s did not participate in this first stage of the nationalist movement, though Ermita was sandwiched between Balintawak and Cavite. There was a brief interruption, therefore, of his studies in the University of Santo Tomas during the second stage of the Revolution. The Guerrero’s were now awakened by the newcomers and invaders, the American forces landing just a couple of miles southeast of their home. After the American landing, in a month or so, two members of the family had already joined the Revolutionary Government in Malolos – Leon Ma. Guerrero and Fernando Ma. Guerrero. Through less impulsive, Manuel S. Guerrero also joined his older brother in the staff of La Independencia, the militant organ of nationalism and independence at any cost.

He shuttled back and forth from his Ermita home to Malolos while this was still possible until the outbreak of hostilities between the American and Filipino forces at San Juan Bridge in February 1899. He stuck to La Independencia, doing whatever he could to keep the paper from collapsing as others did. From town to town the primary was lodged in a freight car of the Manila Railroad; but as town after town fell to American forces, it was dislodged and its staff disbanded. Before this end came, Manuel S. Guerrero managed to escape and upon reaching Manila he contributed to La Patria, another militant paper edited by Pedro A. Paterno. Some members of La Independencia were able to enter Manila and they renewed efforts in putting out the weekly Manila with Jose Palma, F. Ma. Guerrero, and Cecilio Apostol as staff members, to which M.S Guerrero served as a contributor, using the penname M. Tralla.

When the Filipino-American war had relented somewhat in intensity, he enrolled once more in the University of Santo Tomas, where he graduated with the degree of Licenciado en Medicina y Cirujia in February 1902. After his graduation, he was appointed by the Military Government medical assistant in Ermita district, rendering service during the cholera epidemic which occurred that year. It was the worst that had hit the country during the American regime and among the casualties was the sublime paralytic Apolinario Mabini.

V. Contribution to Medical Sciences

Scientific investigation occupied his attention after his medical schooling. The cholera epidemic that year itself became the subject of a paper entitled : "Profilaxia del Colera Morbo Asiatico" (Profilaxis of the Asiatic Cholera disease) which was presented to the Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico (Medical-Pharmaceutical Association) and which received for the author a prize on June 15, 1902. In the following year, in 1903, he was appointed professor of pathology in the University of Santo Tomas. Two years after his graduation, on October 10, 1904, he read an important paper on infantile beriberi before the Colegio which earned for him admission to that learned body in the following year, 1905. True to the ethics of science, Dr. M.S. Guerrero acknowledged his indebtedness to the observations made by Dr. Luis e. Guerrero and Dr. Quintos. It appears, however, that this work never got published an unfortunate event, for it would established his priority in infantile beriberi studies. Even without such documentation, Dr. Guerrero’s contemporaries later on acknowledged the significance of his experimental findings.

Together with other doctors, Dr. Guerrero never ceased in his deep concern to ameliorate the scourge that was plaguing Filipino infants and haunting thousands of mothers. In the year he read his initial paper on infantile beriberi it was reported the infant death rate for the City of Manila alone in 1904 was 811.5 deaths per 1,000 births. Infant mortality, therefore, became one of the national concerns; it was the motivating force that moved the founding of a private institution cleared La Gota de leche "to furnish pure sterilized milk to infants whose mothers were unable to nurse them". The enterprise was later incorporated and became known as La Proteccion de la Infancia. In its technical staff Dr. Guerrero served for many years together with Dr. Fernando G. Calderon, Dr. Gervacio Ocampo and Dr. Joaquin Quintos who were then gaining reputation in their own fields of specialization.

In 1910 the Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico began publishing a scientific journal called REvista Filipina de Medicina y Farmacia in whose staff Dr. Guerrero and Dr. Quintos presented a joint paper entitled: el Beriberi en los Ninos de Pecho (Observaciones Anatomo-clinicians)", (Infantile Beriberi: Antomical-Clinical Observations) in which the authors underscored gravity of the problem of infant mortality.

The two authors traced the history of studies on taon during the Spanish period initiated by Dr. Manuel Xerez Burgos (1889) and later by Dr. Manuel Gomez Martinez, the Japanese Professor Hirota, up and until the first decade of the 20^th century when studies by Dr. Guerrero himself and that of Dr. Jose Albert (1908) were undertaken. The two medical scientists came up with an identification of taon as "a form of beriberi transmitted to a child by a mother or wet nurse sick with beriberi by means of her milk in almost all instances, rarely in the uterus.

Dr. Guerrero and Dr. Quintos were not certain of their findings themselves. It was however, Dr. Guerrero who continued his experiments; he carried laboratory studies on the effect of milk of beriberi mothers on the heart of frogs (1911, 1912). Later Dr. Daniel de la Paz pointed out the significance of Dr. Guerrero’s work:

His initial studies were received with acepricism at first, but these proved to be the beginning of a series of investigations which culminated in the identification of the causes of infantile beriberi. He continued his work until his death.

To appreciate the significance of Dr. Guerrero’s contribution to medical science, it should be noted that during the Spanish period until the first two decades of the American regime, "Every other child died before his birthday" and "the Philippines had the uneviable distinction of having the highest mortality rate in the world" in the words of Dr. Victor Heiser.

Dr. Guerrero knew how to focus his attention on a problem: work after another was concentrated on infantile beriberi. Dr. Jose Albert, who was in one way or another a specialist on the subject, later on assessed the value of Dr. Guerrero’s contribution to medical science as follows:

As early as 1904 Guerrero’s contribution to medical science won recognition with a silver medal award in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition; and very much later, in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, 111915. Dr. Fernando Claderon, a competent authority, thought highly of Guerrero as the true father of studies on infantile beriberi in the Philippines. Dr. Jose E. Montes, another contemporary authority, would qualify Dr. Guerrero for the Nobel Prize in science as a true benefactor of humanity.

Santos Cristobal grouped his writings into: (1) articles or sketches describing customs; 2) folktales, and 3) scientific articles. Most of the first two types are well represented in a posthumous work entitled: "Prosa Literaria (1921) and the third group is listed at the end of this sketch. Don Panyong as E. delos Santos Cristobal was known to his circle of friends and admirers went on to evaluated the quality of his literary works by comparing them with those of Guerreros’ predessesor of the Propaganda Movement as follows:

Dr. Guerrero’s productions are almost with out precedent in the Philippines Islands , if we except some of the articles of Gen. Luna and Lopez Jaena and the incidents in Rizal’s novels. But, although these "forerunners of the Revolution" wrote outside if the Archipelago, yet as regards scope, quantity and quality, and especially, fluency of language, both in the tongue of the noble birthplace of the Castilian language as well as in the dialect derived from it, the Ermita patios, so picturesque and graceful, they were not his superiors, but speaking of literature, the two authors first named are inferior to him so far as artistic execution is concerned.

Aside from literature, his other interests touched on Music and painting; he had some aquarelles.

1. Other Services and Family Life.

In social and professional work Guerrero was also active and showed much interest. He was the secretary of the committee of the Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico designated on September 2, 1911, to organize a society for the protection of infants and which was largely responsible for the publication of the Boletin. He was secretary of the first 1912 and the second (1914) Asamblea de Medicos y Farmaceuticos de Filipinas, which were instrumental in the passage of Act 2376 February 28, 1914 and the chairman of the pediatrics section of the third (1916) Asamblea. He was a member of the Council of Hygiene and one of the founders of the Liga Nacional Filipina para la Proteccion dela Infancia and its subsidiary La Gota de Leche.

He was married to Elisa Ocampo (June 25, 11883-April 19, 1958), daughter of Martin Ocampo, the publisher of El Rencimiento and El Renacimiento Filipino, exponents of Filipino Nationalism and culture, and Trinidad Barred, on February 18, 1905 by whom he had eight children: Clemencia +; Renato M. Josefina Veluya (da Cynthia M. Manuel Madrigal); Edmundo, playweight and drama director, unmarried: Lorenzo Jesuit priest; Manuel M. Regina Santos (children: Benjamin, Jose); Imelda (d. 1942); and Benjamin (d. 1945).

He died of cancer a few days before reaching his 42^nd year.

1. Jose M. Clotet, S. J.: D. Manuel S. Guerrero (1919), p. 5.
2. Ibid.’ p.8
3. This work was published in the same year (see "Scientific Contributions" appended at the end of the sketch).

5. W. Cameron Forbes: The Philippine Islands, v.11, (1928). P. 361.

6. Report of the Philippine Commission, 1907, part 2, p. 17 quoted from

7. Manila: Imp. De Lorenzo Cribe, 1910; 73 pp.
8. Summarize from the introduction of above work. Ibid., p. 3.
9. ibid., p. 3
10. See the works in Scientific Contributions at the end of sketch.
11. See his "Development of Pharmacology in the Philippines," National Research Council of the Philippines Islands, Bulletin, No. 4. (February 1935), p. 319.
12. An American Doctor’s Odyssey (1936), p. 38.
13. Studies on five Hundred Cases of Infantile Beriberi (1935), p. 3.
14. see his "Manuel S. Guerrero como Scientifico," in El. Dr. Manuel S. Guerrero y la Prensa (1919), p. 70.
15. See his "Manuel Sss. Guerrero como Meimbro del Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico de Filipinas," in el Dr. Manuel S. Guerrero’s Prosa Lieraria (1921), p. 11.
16. Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal: "Prologo" to M. s. Guerrero’s Prosa Literaria (1921) p. 11.
17. Ibid., III.
18. In his "Manuel S. Guerrero, Literature and Journalist," Philippine review, v. 6, nos. 10-12 (October-December, 1921), p. 563.

1. 1902 Profilaxia del Colera Morbo Asiatico. Obra premaida por el Colegio

2. 1910 Anatomia Patologica del Beriberi de los Ninos de Pecho," Revista

Filipinaa de Medicina y FAramcia, (RFMF) 1 July 1910) 1-7.

3 "La Mortalidad de los Ninos de Pecho Filipinos en la cuidad de Manila,"

16. "El Primer Caso de Sodoku en Filipinas,: Cultura Social VIII (July 1917).

POSTHUMOUS WORK

1. Printed sources:

Jose Ma. Clotet, S.J.: Datos Biograficos del Dr. D. Manuel Severino Guerrero

E. Arsenio Manuel; Dictionary of Philippine biography, v. 1 (1955), v. (1970).

II. Personal information furnished by:

Wilfredo Ma. Guerrero, U.P. Campus, April 3, 1968.