SANITATION OF THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE. 



By Col. W. C. GoRGAS. U. S. Army, 

 Chief Sanitary Officer. 



From a sanitary point of view the location of the Panama Canal is 

 very important. It is within the limits of the Republic of Panama, 

 in the Tropics, and about 9° north of the Equator. For engineering 

 reasons the lowest point in the mountain range, running north and 

 south through the Western Hemisphere, has been selected, the range 

 at this point being about 300 feet high. The Isthmus, in its general 

 direction here, runs east and west; the canal, therefore, in a general 

 direction is north and south. The local coast line at the point where 

 the town of Panama is situated bellies somewhat toward the south, 

 so that when you look to the east you see nothing but the Pacific 

 Ocean as far as the eye can reach. It struck me with surprise and 

 took me some time to get used to the phenomena of every morning 

 seeing the sun rise out of the Pacific and set behind the mountain on 

 wliich I live. My preconceived ideas were ju.st the opposite — that is, 

 that tlu' Sim should rise out of the Atlantic and set in the Pacific. 

 As a mattci- of fact, the town of Panama is some 20 miles east of a 

 line drawn north and south from the town of Colon. 



The town of l^anama was established early in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, and was probably selected because the ridge of the hemisphere 

 was lowest at this point and because the Chagres River gave river 

 transportation at this point about two-thirds the distance across tlie 

 Isthmus. The Isthnuis is narrower, considerably, at several other 

 points than at Panama; but the ridge at the.se points is very much 

 higher. The town rapidly grcAV in importance, and in the first hun- 

 dred years aftei" its settlement was probably the most imi)ortant town 

 in Spanish America. Here Pizarro's expedition was fitted out, and 

 here all the enormous gold and silver treasure from the South Ameri- 

 can conquests came across the continent. In IGTl the English bucca- 

 neer, Henry Morgan, captured and sacked the city after he had out- 

 maneuvered and defeated a larger and superior Spanish regular 

 force on the broad savannas adjacent to the town. After this catas- 

 trophe the present location of Panama was selected — a high penin- 



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