CHAPTER II 



THE SITUATION ON THE ISTHMUS IN I904, BEFORE 

 AMERICAN OCCUPATION 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT appointed Colonel 

 * W. C. Gorgas as Chief Sanitary Officer of the 

 Isthmian Canal Commission, and it was tinder his 

 leadership that the first sanitary survey was made. 

 He established temporary headquarters for his first 

 assistants at Ancon, where the French had terraced 

 the hillsides and had estabUshed a hospital of 

 about twenty wards. The situation selected by 

 the French was excellent, but to-day, from our 

 more advanced knowledge, we can readily under- 

 stand why their sick-rate was so high, and can 

 also realize that it would have been equally so 

 under an American administration working with 

 the limited knowledge pertaining to malaria pre- 

 vious to the year 1900. 



At the time the American government assumed 

 control of the Canal Zone, there was a succession 

 of villages strung along the Hne of the canal; most 



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