452 Biology in America 



Kissinger of Ohio, concerning whom Doctor Reed says in his 

 report : 



"I cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing my 

 admiration of the conduct of this young Ohio soldier who 

 volunteered for this experiment as he expressed it 'solely in 

 the interest of humanity and the cause of science' and with 

 the only proviso that he should receive no pecuniary reward. 

 In my opinion, this exhibition of moral courage has never 

 been surpassed in the annals of the Army of the United 

 States." The Spaniards who volunteered did so for the 

 money offered them, and because they had little faith in the 

 theory. After three had contracted the disease however 110 

 more of them volunteered. 



Let us look for a moment at a few of the results of these 

 discoveries^ and sacrifices. 



The failure of the French under DeLesseps to dig the 

 Panama Canal was due to many factors, chief of which were 

 dishonesty, extravagance and fever. With no knowledge of 

 the causes of yellow fever and malaria it was naturally 

 impossible for them to successfully combat these plagues. 

 The exact mortality figures for the period of the French 

 occupation are not available, but the rate is known to have 

 been very high. The contractors who were doing the work 

 for the Canal Company were charged $1 a day for each 

 of their men cared for in the company's hospital. Conse- 

 quently when a laborer was taken sick his employer often 

 discharged him in order to save hospital expenses, and many 

 of these unfortunate men were left to die upon the roads 

 leading into Panama and Colon. Of thirty-six Catholic nuns 

 brought from France to serve as nurses twenty-four died of 

 yellow fever. Seventeen out of eighteen young French engi- 

 neers who came over on one vessel died within a month of 

 their arrival. 



When the United States undertook the canal work in 1904 

 Colonel W. C. Gorgas of the army -medical corps was placed 

 in charge of sanitation. The drinking water in the canal 

 zone was almost entirely obtained from cisterns or water 

 barrels. In the city of Panama alone there were four thou- 

 sand breeding places for mosquitoes. These were immediately 

 covered to prevent the entrance of mosquitoes, and in eight 

 months' time there were less than four hundred receptacles 

 containing mosquito larvae. In addition to covering the rain 

 barrels, about 700,000 gallons of oil were used for oiling pools, 

 and nearly four hundred miles of drainage ditches cleaned 

 out every year in order to destroy the breeding grounds and 



'Howard, "Mosquitoes of North and Central America," Carnegie 

 Institution, Pub. 159, p. 244. 



