The Panama Canal 



559 



ernor Magoon, under whose jurisdiction 

 all this work has been so successfully 

 accomplished, is arranging to raze many 

 of the worst shacks and replace them 

 with modern sanitary buildings. Within 

 a year, it may confidently be predicted, 

 Panama will be a city well watered, well 

 sewered, well paved, and clean and 

 healthful. 



What has been done for Panama is 

 being done for Colon and every impor- 

 tant labor camp across the Isthmus. 

 Work on Colon's water reservoir is well 

 under way, and temporary measures are 

 being employed to safeguard the city's 

 health pending the report of a board 

 appointed to recommend plans for per- 

 manent improvements. An abundant 

 supply of puie water from mountain 

 springs has been provided at Culebra 

 and at other important labor centers 

 along the line of the canal, and ade- 

 quate drainage is being installed in them 

 also. 



Four thousand one hundred men are 

 now employed in these sanitary under- 

 takings. So effective has been the work 

 that yellow fever has been virtually ex- 

 tirpated from the Isthmus. In June 

 last there were 62 cases of yellow fever 

 there ; in July, 42 ; in August, 27 ; in 

 September, 6, and in October, the worst 

 month of the year for yellow fever, 3 — 

 no one of the latter among the em- 

 ployes and all originating many miles 

 from the line of the canal. In regard 

 to general health conditions, I was told, 

 when on the Isthmus in October, that 

 there were over a hundred less patients 

 in Ancon Hospital than there had been 

 for many months, although we had 

 brought in 4,000 additional laborers 

 during the previous two months, and it 

 was from the new arrivals that the hos- 

 pitals were usually recruited. 



To fully understand what has been 

 accomplished by our sanitary work, it is 

 only necessary to compare the present 

 rate of sickness with that which pre- 

 vailed on the Isthmus when the French 



were in possession. In August, 1882, 

 the second year of the French occu- 

 pancy, with a force of 1,900 men, the 

 death rate was 112 per 1,000. In Au- 

 gust, 1905, with a force of 12,000 men, 

 there were only eight deaths, or two- 

 thirds of a man per 1,000. 



If we have not, as our critics com- 

 plain, made "the dirt fly," we have 

 made the filth fly, and we have made 

 yellow fever, that supreme terror of the 

 tropics, fly so far from the Isthmus that 

 it will never, let us hope, find its way 

 back again. 



We have established a hospital sys- 

 tem which includes a large hospital at 

 Colon and another at Ancon, and a num- 

 ber of smaller hospitals at convenient 

 points along the line. The one at Colon 

 is built on piers over the Atlantic 

 Ocean, and patients there have at all 

 times the benefit of cool and invigorat- 

 ing sea air. That at Ancon is one of the 

 largest and best equipped in the world, 

 situated on the hill above Panama and 

 commanding a superb view of moun- 

 tains and sea. 



The management and service of the 

 hospitals are on a par with the natural 

 advantages and beauty of location. 

 Colonel Gorgas, who is in direct charge 

 of hospitals, has organized a staff of 

 doctors and nurses for which it would 

 be difficult to find a superior anywhere. 

 Mr Isham Randolph, one of the mem- 

 bers of the consulting board of engi- 

 neers, who recently visited the Isthmus, 

 said, in a letter published on his return: 

 " The hospitals are a source of just 

 pride to our people. If sickness could 

 ever be regarded as a boon, it may be 

 so thought of in Ancon and Colon." 

 No less emphatic testimony comes from 

 Mr D. M. Hazlett, who speaks from 

 personal experience as a patient in 

 Ancon Hospital. Writing in the Pan- 

 ama Mail, he says : * ' The medical staff 

 and corps of trained nurses are beyond 

 criticism. No expense has been spared 

 in providing the various wards with all 



