HEALTH CONDITIONS OF PANAMA. 103 



The. improvement of the health conditions on the Panama 

 Canal is not conlined to any particular race or to any particular 

 disease. As a matter of fact it is most marked in two wholly 

 unexpected directions : — 



( 1 ) With negroes who are supposed to be largely immune 

 from Tropical diseases, and 



(2) In the case of pneumonia, which is not ordinarily consi- 

 dered as being a Tropical disease or insect borne. 



It would probably surprise most people to hear that in the 

 days of the French Canal companies, and also in the first years 

 under the Americans : — 



(a) The death rate among the negro workers was much 

 heavier than among the European employes, and that 



(b) The principal cause of the high mortality of the negroes 

 was pneumonia, as is the case with the Kaffirs on the 

 mines of the Transvaal and of Southern Rhodesia. 



By the end of 1007 Colonel Gorgas had brought his measures 

 for preventing the spread of disease by insects to a high state 

 of perfection. In nearly every one of the monthly bulletins for 

 that year is reported the completion of some important item 

 in the plan of campaign against insects and vermin. Before the 

 commencement of 1908 the houses of practically all the Ameri- 

 cans working on the Canal had been screened and made vermin 

 proof and provided with water closets in place of the pail system. 

 An examination of the table giving the mortality rates from the 

 beginning of 1906 to the end of last year shows that the reduction 

 in the death rates of the employes coincide in a remarkable 

 manner with the maturing of the plans of the Isthmian Canal 

 Sanitation Department. Further, that table points to the conclu- 

 sion that the improvement effected is permanen: in f'haracter. An 

 idea of the extent and bearing of this improvement can be 

 gathered from the following comparisons of the disease death 

 rates of 1906 with those of 1912: — 



]\Iortalit>' from Diseases per thousand per annum among the 

 employes of the Isthmjan Canal Commission and the 

 Panama Railroad Company. 



A. — Europeans. 



1906. 



Pneumonia 3.61 



Malaria 2.85 



Typhoid and other intestinal diseases 2.09 



Meningitis 38 



Other Diseases 3.42 



Total 12.35 462 7.73 



