Dismaya, Carmella Marie A.

Life and Works of Rizal

CBET-01-403E
Activity 3

1. Medical practices
 Rizal provided free medicine to his patients, most of them were underprivileged.
However, he also had wealthy patients who paid him well enough for his
excellent surgical skill. Among them were Don Ignacio Tumarong who gave
Rizal 3000 pesos for restoring his sight, an Englishman who gave him 500 pesos,
and Aklanon haciendero, DonFrancisco Azcarraga, who paid him a cargo of
sugar. His skill was put into test in August 1893 when his mother, Doña Teodora
Alonzo, was placed under opthalmic surgery for the third time. The operation was
a success, however, Alonzo, ignored her son's instructions and removed the
bandages in her eyes which lead to irritation and infection.

2. Civic activities
 Rizal also partakes in civic works in Dapitan. Upon arriving in the province, he
noticed its poor condition. He drained the marshes of Dapitan to get rid of
malaria-carrying mosquitoes. He also provided lighting system – coconut oil
lamps posted in dark streets – in the province out of what he earned from being a
physician. He beautified Dapitan by remodeling the town plaza, with the aid of
his Jesuit teacher, Fr. Francisco Sanchez, and created a relief map of Mindanao
(footnote: using stones, soil and grass) right in front the church.

3. Educational activities
 Rizal established a school in Dapitan which was attended by 16 young boys from
prominent families. Instead of charging them for the matriculation, he made the
students do community projects for him like maintaining his garden and field. He
taught them reading, writing in English and Spanish, geography, history,
mathematics, industrial work, nature study, morals and gymnastics. He
encouraged his students to engage in sports activities to strengthen their bodies as
well. There was no formal room, like the typical classroom nowadays. Classes
were conducted from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. with the teacher sitting on a hammock
while the students sat on a long bamboo bench.

4. Scientific achievements
 Rizal shared his interest with nature to his students. With his boys, they explored
the jungles and searched for specimens which he sent to museums in Europe,
particularly in Dressed Museum. In return, scientific books and surgical
instruments were delivered to him from the European scientists. He also made a
bulk of other researches and studies in the fields of ethnography, archaeology,
 geology, anthropology and geography. However, Rizal's most significant
contribution in the scientific world was his discovery of three species:

1. Draco rizali – flying dragon

2. Apogonia rizali – small beetle
3. Rhacophorus rizali – rare frog

5. Linguistic achievements
 Rizal was interested in the languages used in Dapitan, thus, studied and made
comparisons of the Bisayan and Malayan languages existing in the region. In fact,
Rizal had knowledge in 22 languages: Tagalog, Ilocano, Bisayan, Subanen,
Spanish, Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Arabic, Malayan, Hebrew,
Sanskrit, Dutch, Catalan, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish and
Russian.

6. Agricultural activities
 Rizal devoted time in planting important crops and fruit-bearing trees in his 16-
hectare land (later, reaching as large as 70 hectares). He planted cacao, coffee,
sugarcane, and coconuts, among many others. He even invested part of his
earnings from being a medical practitioner and his 6000-peso winnings from a
lottery on lands. From the United States, he imported agricultural machinery and
introduced to the native farmers of Dapitan the modern agricultural methods.
Rizal also visualized of having an agricultural colony in Sitio Ponot, within the
Sindañgan Bay. He believed that the area was suitable for cattle-raising and for
cash-crops as the area had abundant water. Unfortunately, this plan did not
materialize.

7. Business activities
 The adventurous Rizal, with his partner, Ramon Carreon, tried his luck in the
fishing, hemp and copra industries. In a letter to his brother-in-law, Manuel T.
Hidalgo, he pointed out the potential of the fishing industry in the province (as the
area was abundant with fish and good beach). He also requested that two good
Calamba fishermen be sent to Dapitan to teach the fisher folks of the new fishing
methods, using a big net called pukutan. But the industry in which Rizal became
more successful was in hemp, shipping the said product to a foreign firm in
Manila.

8. As an inventor
 In 1887, during Rizal’s medical practice in Calamba, he invented a special type of
lighter called sulpukan which he sent to Blumentritt as a gift. According to Rizal,
the wooden lighter's mechanism was based on the principle of compressed air.
Another of his inventions was the wooden brick-maker can manufacture about
6,000 bricks a day.