190 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
which offer a much greater return for man’s labour than do the temperate 
zones, will be settled up by the white races ; and that again the centres of 
wealth, civilisation, and population will be in the tropics, as they were in 
the dawn of man’s history, rather than in the temperate zone as at 
present.” 
Whether this theory will prove correct time alone can show, but that it 
has been put forward shows what the labour of organised sanitation can 
do when directed by such a man as Gorgas. 
Gorgas was a member of many scientific societies, and received many 
honours during his life. He was awarded the Kingsley Gold Medal by the 
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1907 ; he was made Honorary 
D.Sc. of Oxford in 1914; Cambridge made him an LL.D. this year; and a 
few weeks before his death the King knighted him. 
He was made Hon. Fellow of our Society in 1916. 
He was not a scientist in the strict sense of the word, perhaps, and he 
calls himself “ a working doctor,” yet he accomplished more than many an 
original investigator. He drove yellow fever out of Havana ; he made 
Panama, “ the white man’s grave,” one of the most healthful places in the 
world; and he was responsible for the medical administration of the 
American Army, with one of the lowest mortality records heretofore 
achieved. Yet with all this driving force and fighting ability “ he was a 
man of soft word and kind thought, seeking counsel and gathering around 
himself associates whom he trusted and who put their trust in him. He 
made many friends through his ever-gracious manner.” 
