190 DISEASES OF SWINE 



When the United States Government took charge of this work, 

 and determined to place a navigable canal across the isthmus, one 

 of the very first things which was done was to send to the Canal 

 Zone a corps of trained army medical officers and medical men, from 

 the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Corps, for 

 the purpose of making such sanitary regulations as would make life 

 in the isthmus safe from the diseases which had stopped every 

 previous attempt to dig the big ditch. As a result of the steps 

 taken by these medical men to prevent disease the isthmus was 

 changed from a death-dealing strip to a comparatively healthy 

 country, and the lives of the workmen on the canal are no more in 

 danger than are the lives of workmen in our modern American 

 city. 



Very much the same thing has been done in Porto Rico, in 

 Cuba, and in the Philippine Islands. Under the old Spanish rule 

 Havana, San Juan, and Manila were hot-beds for yellow fever, 

 bubonic plague, small-pox, and various other epidemics which made 

 life in any of the cities very dangerous for the average white man. 

 When the United States assumed control of these island possessions 

 one of the first things done was to clean up the large cities, and, 

 by taking proper measures to prevent disease, they have been 

 brought upon a par with the average American city, and the lives 

 of those whose business takes them to Manila or Havana are just 

 as safe as they would be in New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago. 

 Fevers and plagues, which formerly swept away thousands of 

 lives, are now practically entirely stamped out. 



What has been accomphshed in this direction in human medi- 

 cine can also be accomplished in the line of prevention of disease 

 in the lower animals if we will but make the necessary efforts. 

 Hog-cholera is a preventable disease, and it can be driven out of 

 the United States as successfully as yellow fever has been forced 

 out of our Southern States and the Canal Zone. We have already 

 in the United States shown the possibilities along this Une in the 

 lower animals by the work that has been carried on with pleuro- 

 pneumonia, foot-and-mouth disease, and other animal plagues. 

 Foot-and-mouth disease has repeatedly invaded the United States, 

 and only prompt work on the part of the United States officials 

 has wiped this disease out of existence, and close supervision of 



