22 LOSS THBOUGH INSECTS THAT CARRY DISEASE. 
decrease in the number of mosquitoes in the city. These opera- 
tion- were directed primarily against the yellow-fever mosquito, and 
incidentally against the other common species that inhabit rain-water 
barrels. Against the Anopheles in the suburbs the same kind of work 
was done as was done in Havana, with exceptionally good results. 
The same operation- were carried on in the villages between Pan- 
ama and Colon. There are some twenty of these villages, running 
from 500 to 3,000 inhabitant- each. Not a -ingle instance of failure 
has occurred in the disinfection of these small town-, and the result 
of the whole work has been the apparent elimination of yellow fever 
and the very great reduction of malarial fever. 
The remarkable character of these results can only be judged accu- 
rately by comparative methods. It is well known that during the 
French occupation there was an enormous mortality among the 
European employee-, and this was a vital factor in the failure of the 
^vork. Exact losses can not be estimated, since the work was done 
under 17 different contractors. These contractors were charged $1 
a day for every sick man to be taken care of in the hospital of the 
company. Therefore it often happened that when a man became 
sick his employer discharged him. so that he would not have to bear 
the expense of hospital charges. There was no police patrol of the 
territory and many of these men died along the line. Colonel 
Gorgas has stated that the English consul, who was at the Isthmus 
during the period of the French occupation, is inclined to think 
that more deaths of employees occurred out of the hospital than in it. 
A great many were found to have died along the roadside while en- 
deavoring to find their way to the city of Panama. The old superin- 
tendent of the French hospital states that one day 3 of the medical 
staff died from yellow fever, and in the same month of the medical 
staff. Thirty-six Roman Catholic sister< were brought over as nurses, 
and 2-t died of yellow fever. On one vessel 18 young French engi- 
neers came over, and in a month after their arrival all but one died. 
Xow that the relation of the mosquito to yellow fever is well under- 
stood, it was found during the first two years under Doctor Gorgas 
that, although there were constantly one or more yellow-fever cases 
in the hospital, and although the nurses and physicians were all non- 
immunes, not a -ingle case of yellow fever was contracted in that 
way. The nurses never seemed to consider that they were running 
any risk in attending yellow fever cases night and day in screened 
wards, and the wives and families of officers connected with the hos- 
pital lived about the grounds, knowing that yellow fever was con- 
stantly being brought into the grounds and treated in near-by build- 
ings. Americans, sick from any cause, had no fear when being 
treated in beds immediately adjoining those of yellow-fever pa- 
tients. Colonel Gorgas and Doctor Carter lived in the old ward 
