Dr. W. C. Gorgas, surgeon-general, U. S. Army. General Gorgas 



(then major) was the chief sanitary officer of Havana, in charge of 

 sanitary work in that city from 1898 to 1902. He immediately grasped 

 the importance of the discoveries of the Army Yellow Fever Commis- 

 sion, and put in operation methods of comhating yellow fever, hased 

 upon the mosquito idea, which eliminated the disease in Havana. He 

 was made colonel and assistant surgeon general by a special act of 

 congress for this work. He was chief sanitary officer of the Panama 

 Canal Zone from March, 1904, until the completion of the canal, and 

 controlled yellow fever, malaria and other tropical diseases so perfectly 

 as to prove heyond all peradventure the feasibility of an extended occu- 

 pation of tropical regions by white races. 



