INTRODUCTION 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT early appreciated 

 ^ the fact that great as were the engineering 

 difficulties to be surmotinted in the making of the 

 Panama Canal, the difficulties of sanitation would 

 be fuUy as great, if not greater, and, before the 

 first Canal Commission was appointed, he told a 

 committee of the American Medical Association, 

 the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, and the New York Academy of Medicine, 

 consisting of Doctor Welch and Doctor Osier of 

 Baltimore, Doctor Musser of Philadelphia, Doctor 

 Bryant of New York, and the writer, that it was his 

 intention to seek for the best man in the world for 

 the task, to pay him whatever would be necessary, 

 and to give him full power. Fortunately, the man 

 needed was found in the person of Colonel (now 

 General) Gorgas, fresh from his triumphant clean- 

 ing up of Havana with the consequent elimination 

 of yellow fever and malaria. General Gorgas took 

 with him from Cuba to Panama a man who 



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