74 THE ORGANISED ANTI-FLY CAMPAIGN 



the work in any other way. It should be regarded as 

 a last resort. The amount of money required is so 

 small that the local authority will supply it if appealed 

 to in the right manner. Even in semi-civilised tropical 

 countries there has rarely been any difficulty in obtain- 

 ing funds for these important sanitary campaigns when 

 the projects have been brought forward in a sincere and 

 sensible way. People are beginning to realise that 

 commercial prosperity and the public health are closely 

 related, and communities dislike disease in their midst ; 

 but it must be shown that such disease exists. This 

 can only be done by the publication of accurate statis- 

 tics. And if the local authorities can be promised a 

 return, or even a likely return for their outlay, they will 

 soon acquiesce in the demand. 



Probably no better instance of the beneficial results 

 of insect-reduction and the abolition of insect-borne 

 disease could be quoted than that of the Panama Canal 

 zone, which at the moment of writing is much before 

 the public. The history of that great undertaking is 

 the history of its sanitation* a permanent monument 

 to the victory of knowledge over ignorance. It is 

 within the memory of most of us this story of Panama. 

 How the disastrous exploit of the French under the 

 leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the hero of the 

 Suez Canal, ended in failure, catastrophe, ruin ; that 

 project of uniting the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans 

 ended unsuccessfully because no one knew how to 

 combat the disease which racked the Isthmus. Then 

 came discovery, and when the Americans undertook 

 the task of engineering the Canal, their first step was 

 to render the zone healthy, to apply the discoveries of 

 science, to reduce the disease-bearing insects, and as a 

 result the project has now succeeded. Panama to-day 



