620 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



former official say to General Gorgas that they had been wrong, 

 and that had their action resulted in his removal, as they desired, a 

 great calamity would have resulted. 



Statistics are as a rule uninteresting, but no one can fail to feel 

 a real interest in the statistical tables published by the department 

 of sanitation, Isthmian Canal Commission. These statistics tell 

 the story of a lessening number of deaths, the story of a decreasing 

 sick rate, and fewer days spent in hospitals, all this with an in- 

 creasing population — a saving that paid, and more than paid, for 

 all the moneys charged against the department of sanitation. The 

 cost of sanitation has been criticized, but no attention has been paid 

 the credit side of the ledger. Is it not proper to credit sanitation 

 with the lessened sick rate and the lives saved ? Divide the cost of 

 sanitation by the one item of lives saved; the answer will be an 

 answer to critics. There are other credits that may be considered 

 that directly and indirectly bring their return to the United States. 

 What of the great object lesson in sanitation — a lesson learned by 

 the rest of the world? Other countries applied the methods prac- 

 ticed by General Gorgas. Especially did South America begin to 

 " clean up." 



Sanitation, the same as that practiced in Cuba and on the Canal 

 Zone, freed some of the greatest ports of South America from yel- 

 low fever and reduced the incidence of malaria; it made travel safe; 

 it lessened quarantine restrictions, and in some instances caused the 

 entire removal of all quarantine, results that were of great benefit 

 to trade. 



General Gorgas taught the world that the Tropics were not of 

 necessity the deadly region they had always been considered; that 

 with proper methods those diseases, fatal to the native as well as 

 the man from the temperate climate, could be eliminated, and once 

 eliminated, they would not reoccur unless imported from some in- 

 fected area. This fact forced unprogressive countries to improve 

 sanitary conditions, to oust yellow fever and malaria. For if those 

 countries wished to keep up with the commercial development of 

 the world and obtain their fair share of the world trade, they must 

 control communicable disease, if not with the view of conserving 

 life, then from the viewpoint of commerce. 



The first three years of General Gorgas's work on the Canal Zone 

 as chief sanitary officer was in a subordinate capacity. The depart- 

 ment of sanitation was not an independent department, but merely 

 a branch of the department of government and sanitation. On March 

 1, 1907, President Eoosevelt appointed General Gorgas a member of 

 the Isthmian Canal Commission and head of the department of 

 sanitation. This was a recognition of results accomplished, a tri- 

 umph of the man and of his methods. So conspicuous was General 



