MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM C. GORGAS, M.C., U.S.A. 303 



contract yellow fever, which rendered him immune for the great 

 work he was to do later on. He was promoted to captain in 1885. 

 During the Spanish-American War he served as major and briga- 

 dier surgeon of volunteers. On July 6, 1898, he received his com- 

 mission as major in the regular army. At the close of the Spanish- 

 American War Major Gorgas was made Chief Sanitary Officer of 

 Havana, in which capacity he served from 1898 to 1902. 



General Gorgas' achievements in combating yellow fever in 

 Cuba and in the Panama Canal Zone are so well known and have 

 been referred to so often in his obituaries and biographies that we 

 shall merely quote here the following statements from General 

 Ireland's tribute: 



"When de Lesseps started his ill-fated venture at canal building in 1880, 

 the French occupants found the Isthmus a death-trap and during the nine 

 years of occupancy they lost 22,819 laborers from the disease. At this time 

 Panama was called 'the White Man's Grave.' When the United States took 

 charge of the Canal in 1904, the death rate was as high as ever and a yellow 

 fever epidemic was actually going on. In less than a year's time, the disease 

 was completely wiped out and there was not a single case since May, 1906." 



For his work in Cuba Gorgas was made a Colonel and Assistant 

 Surgeon General by special act of Congress in March, 1903. In 

 1907 he was made a member of the Isthmus Canal Commission, 

 and as such he remained in charge of the sanitation of the Isthmus 

 until the winter of 1913. 



In 1913, at the request of the British government, Gorgas went 

 to South Africa to investigate conditions in the Rand mines, 

 where the natives were dying in large numbers from pneumonia, 

 miners' consumption, malarial fever, and tuberculosis. It was 

 here that for the first time the General's interest was centered 

 publicly upon tuberculosis, although it is known that he had al- 

 ways felt a profound interest in the combat of this disease, and he 

 had been a member of our Association for a number of years. 

 General Gorgas had a deep insight into the primary causes of 

 tuberculosis, such as bad housing, underfeeding, overwork, and he 

 did not hesitate to state publicly that our present taxation evils, 

 grants, and immunities represent an unjust social order that 

 is largely responsible for insufficient and unsanitary housing, 

 poverty, and want in general. He was an ardent disciple of Henry 

 George and firmly believed in the single tax system. 



