B
THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: JULY 14, 1912.
Trop
ical World to Be
. Copyrlght, 1912. by Frank O. Carpenter.)
.OTEti TIVOLI. ANCQIX, Pan
ama. I have just returned
from a chat with Colonel
William C. Gorgas, the army
surgeon who haa been In
charge of health matters dur-
' ing our stay on the Isthmus of Panama.
You -all know of his wonderful work. He
found the canal sone a pest hole, and he
has made It one of the healthiest of all
spots upon earth. The death rate last
year among our fifty odd thousand em
ployes'was, less than eight to the thou
sand ana among the white Americans
who work on the canal It waa less than
three to that number. The death rate
In New Tork of all causes was about
sixteen per thousand, and in many other
cities of the United States It is" very much
higher.
I have never seen anywhere a healthier
looking crowd than those men who ara
working on the canal. They labor all
day in the sun, and in the rainy, season
are out for eight hours when the heavens
downpour. Nevertheless, their eyes are
as bright as the blue of the Panama sky,
and their faces as rosy as that of the
sun when it rises out of ta Pacific
ocean to send its blazing fire ti-a upon
them.
That sun and the Pacific I will not
again attempt to explain- It seems here
to rise in the west and set in the east,
but it is just as hot as any sun of the
.tropics, and for all other things quite as
deadly. Through the eiforts of Colonel
Gorgas and the others of our medical
force it has. been robbed-of Its terrors,
and men labor away 'all day, all week
and the whole, year without fearing.
Their experiments in sanitation have, In
deed, robbed the tropics of its terrors
and they have instituted a new scheme
of treatment which promises to create
a new world for the future. But I will
tell you what Colonel Gorgas says about
this farther on.
The Panama of the Pat.
During my talk 1 asked Colonel Gorgas
something as to the Panama of the past
and whether it was really as bad as was
painted. He replied. "
"We found It so when we took charge
here in 19ik. The official pilot chart used
at that time described the isthmus as the
hottest, wettest and most feverish region
on earth. It was said that intermittent
find malignant fevers were prevalent, and
that there was an epidemic of yellow
fever at times. This' had' been the condi
tion for centuries, 'the Spalnards, who
first crossed to the Pacific about 1520,
found It so, and at the time of the dis
covery (of gold California the forty-niners
died by the hundreds. Along about 1863,
;when the Panama rallrdad across the
ifthmus was ha4;coinplte(J,,we sent, a
jregitnent of. the United States army to
California' byway' of ' the- isthmus) with
General Grant as quartermaster. Tha
regiment had to march from Gorgona to
'Panama where they took ship for San
Francisco. During the latter part of.
their journey they lost eighty men "out
of 810.
"An even greater mortality prevailed
.among some of the men who built the
railroad. You have heard of the death
,cars. which went over the road every
morning and the story that there was a
corpse for every tie on the track. I do
not know about that, but the mortality
was1 so great that the construction work
had to be stopped for lack or men. The
railroad company once imported 1,000
negroes from the west coast of Africa,
and they all died within the space of six
months. Later they brought in 1,000 j
Chinamen and the most of these died, j
The mortality was terrible." . j
Death and Disease Among French.
"It was equally bad in the days of the
French canal, was it no?"
"If we may believe the stories it was
beyond' description, awful. Sir Claude
Mallet,' the present British minister at
Panama, was then British consul here
and as such had the administration ot
the estates of the British subjects who
riled on the work, tells , me that be had
from' 300 to 600 such estates every month.
Our death' 'rate' calculated on a' force of
30,000 would amount to only (twenty per
month,, and those British deaths were
among the subjects of John Bull only.
"It is hard, to get, accurate statistics
of Just how many died, under the French.
TV knoW that they had good hospitals
and that the sick in them were -.well
cared for, but the contractors had to pay
$1- a day for their men who were kept tn
the hospitals,- and you can easily see that
the. ordinary contractor would send no
more , than he. had to. From the best-Information
I can get I believe that the
French' lost 40,009 laborers by death dur
ing the work of the first company on
the: canal, and that would make a death
rata per, annum of about 25 per cent, or
more, than 250 per thousand. I doubt if
we could' have done better if we had
known no more of tropical diseases than
they dtd.w
What Sanitation Did.
"Under those conditions could we have
built the canal. Colonel Gorgas?" I asked.
"It would have been very aifticult to
have gotten our white employes to come
here. We haU trouble to hold them dur
ing, the' yellow fever time of llwo.. You
must also consider that the deaths among
the French were very largely among the
vviifte French employes. According to the
record of their hospitals here tney had
mare' than 1.0u0 yellow fever deaths dur
iug nine years and those were mostly
Frenchmen. It is safe to say that there
were aU many more deaths from yellow
fever among the same class outside the
hospitals.'
"Now, the French white employes aver
aged only a few-over 1,000, and this means
mat they lost four-fifths of their whole
lurce in. Blue years, . on . eleven-sixteenths
in five years. During our first. five years
tim number' of our white force was, on
the average',' only a little more than O.tML
if we had Tost at the- same' rate as tbe
French we would " have already buried
more than 1000 of those white men froan
yellow fever aloge. and according to the
tarae calculation w snoild have had
about 21,000' wbito mxa herti in Panama
ta have kept our forces at Vork. If we
had cad. that many we should nave al
ready .buried, over S.00Q from Uuat dl
fciU." ' . ';. j
Xai hat has been the, actial lobar
"it was cniy nineteen." ; j
"Htv you any yellow fover f owT"
"No, have had no cases slnw 1906.
I think Oat w may safely uy. that w
have wiped it .out of the isthmus as. an
epidemic for all time to come."
"How about malaria V
!
"When we first earn here we Jiad, on
the average, 800 cases in every , 1,1)00 ot
our employes. This has been reduced
I until now there are only about 173 per
1,000 who are sent to the hospital during
lithe year. X doubt whether the. .health of
ii
' 'tfil A 7iVMKimhls w&MsT 3tvxmrrj tits jxass wrrir atazucazz, iw&fsnfa
; m. SkMaMBBBBBBBBBBSnBSSSSBaBBBaBWWHBBWBW W SSe " ' . . .1-. .R..iIS6 ( I ' . .fllj rft-r-.A
Spraying ditches to destroy zzalajria.
JsJ mosquitoes
any Working force all the world over is !
mucU better than ours." ,
Trontcs as the World of the Futurne.
"Have you not proved , that the white
mani cin live and work , in the tropics
quite as well as- In the temperate
none?" . .
"Ys," replied ' Colonel Gorgas. "That
has been absolutely demonstrated, and I
believe it will have a great effect as to
the world of the future. It would seem
that!th,e first man roust hava lived in the
tropics; and that' that was his natural
habitation.. He was born an animal with
out clothes -'and at the start he must
have had a warm climate. It was only
when the -tropical diseases drove him
away that he left that most beautiful
part of old' mother earth. Now that these
diseases can be controlled, he will come
back and within a few centuries in all
probability the most civilized parts of the
world will be the tropical zones. With
& given aftiount of labor man can pro
duce tar more there than in the colder
regions. He can llva better and have
more days to work. As it is now the
greater part of the population of the
cold lands is idle for six months of the
year. Its inhabitants spend their time in
fighting the cold."
"But will it not cost too much to
make the fight against the disease. Can
the ordinary man afford to live in mos
quito-proof dwellings?"
"I think it would be very much cheaper
than to heat his home in the cold lands
of the far north," replied Colonel Gor
gas. "All that you need here Is a screen
of woven wire about the outside of your
house. You do not need a heating plant
or fur or wool clothing. Indeed the dif
ference of the cost is altogether In favor
of the tropics! and as the sanitation ot
the tropic's Is improved the diseases will
be so eliminated that the cost of fight
ing them Will grow less and less.
"You must also remember," continued
Colonel Gorgas, "That the great undevel
oped: lands of the future are those near
the equator. Take Brazil. That country is
as large as the United States, and has
a vast deal more cultivable land. The
whole northern part of South America
will eventually be the home of a great
many people, and we yet have the Kongo
valley as the center of a race of white
men. Moreover the habitable parts ot tne
colder lands are already crowded and the
world must have room. I believe that the
white man's emigration to what Is . the
so-called torrid zone is only a question
of time."
Sanitation tn Brasll.
"But how about the tropical peoples of
today. Colonel Gorgas? Do they realize
the possibilities that might come to them
by Improved sanitation? Have tney
learned any lessons from Panama.
"Most of the people of the tropics, and
by this I mean the civilized nations,
have been watching with great Interest
the government work here at-Panama
and many of them are taking advantage
of the discoveries made In recent years
as to malarial and yellow fever mosqui
toes. They' have adopted the methods of
eliminating these pests which we intro
duced at Havana and have found to work
so welll here. As a result yellow fever
haa bean almost . eliminated from Rio
Janeiro and Santos, which, for genera'
tions, have been the pest holes of the
world. It has been practically wiped eut
rA Mexico and it has been .reduced
Kreatly in other places.
"And just here I would say," continued
Colonel Gorgas, "that a great misappre
hension obtains ss to the dangers of the
tropics. If you can keep away from the
mosquitoes the climate is no more dele
terious than that of any other part ot ;
the world. Taking care of one's health
here is not unlike taking care of an or
chard. Apples and peaches are Injured
more, by the insect pests which attack
tbe tres than by lack of cultivation or
Inferior soil. ' If you can keep off the Insects-
the luscious fruit matures in boun
tiful .quantises. It Is the same with man
In the. tropics. If you can keep the para
sites out of him he seems to thrive quite
as well as In the temperate tone.
A Coet of One Oat Ter Day
"But Dr. Gorgas. are not the methods
of sanitation used on the canal so costly
that no nation' could afford to adopt
them?" 1 . .
'No'. They are cheap. The average
cost of keeping the population of the
Isthmus In its present sanitary condition
is just about 1 cent per day per capita,
and that sum Is well within the means ot
any tropical t country. A great deal ot
misstatement has been made concerning
that matter. It has been said that we
were spending something like $2,000,000
per year on sanitation, and certain imag
inative newspaper men have figured out
Home of Empires of
tha a he same ralo It would cost a
vast sum to keep the United States
healthy. Those figures did not come from
this bureau. Our actual cost of sanita
tion has not amounted to' more than
$365,000 per year, and this Is for a popu
lation i of 150,000. It would amount to
considerably less than 1 cent per day
per man. If you take the ratio of cost,
as compared with that of Chicago or
others of the United States cities you will
find that we are spending comparatively
little. Indeed. I have fugured that we
are spending here only 10, per cent more
per capita than Is spent the United
States over."
The Deadly Mosqnitoea.
The conversation here turned to the two
kinds of mosquitoes, which more than the
lions and tigers of the jungle have driven
the white men from the tropics, and I
asked Colonel Gorgas to tell me some
thing about these terrible Insects. In the
conversation which followed, be said:
"There are altogether about 400 dif
ferent kinds of mosquitoes, each of which
has Its own habitat and peculiarities.
Take the Jersey mosquito. That breeds
in salt water and will sometimes fly
thirty miles during the nigh. It is far
more ferocious than the malarial or yel
low fever mosquito, and lte bite is more
painful. The malarial mosquito Is known
as the anopheie. It bites during the day
time, but its chief feeding time is at
night. It is an out-of-door mosquito and
usually lives In the country. It breeds
In fresh water and seeks fresh streams
with long grass at the sides or quiet
pools. The stegomyia or yellow fever
mosquito Is more fond of the towns and
the cities. It breeds in cisterns, rain
barrels, old cans filled with water and
stagnant pools. It Is not nearly so large
as the Jersey mosquito, and is . grayish
white with zebra stripes about his body
and legs. -
Both the stegomyia and the anopheie
have about the same habltr as to re
producing their young. They feed upon
vegetable matter, but. the-females when
they are about to breed must have blood
and for that reason they attack man.
They also have the properties which make
them the fit habitat for the yellow fever
and malarial parasites, and If they feed
upon a man who has malaria or the yel
low fever they take these parasites into
their system. The parasites are so small
you cannot see them with a microscope,
but we know that they exist -and that
they multiply so rapidly that they finally
come into the saliva of the mosquito.
When the mosquito, having been infected
with these parasites, bites man a second
time she injects some of this saliva con
taining the parasites and this gives man
the yellow fever or malaria.
"It Is, however, the anopheie only that
transmits malaria, and the stegomyia only
that gives yellow fever. There is no
such thing as men having either of these
diseases if he is not bitten by these
mosquitoes."
Yellow Fever Not Contagions.
"But how do you know that, Colonel
Gorgas?" I asked.
"It has been proved by many experi
ments. The fact that the malarial mos
quito would transmit malaria was dis
covered by an English army surgeon,
Ronald Ross, and, as you may remember,
experiments were made in the campagna
just outside Rome, which proved there
was no danger of disease in that fever
stricken district to , those who live ' In
screened houses and were not bitten by
mosquitoes. The fact that tne yellow
fever mosquito would transmit the yel
low fever was discovered by a board of
army doctors, namely. Drs. Reed, Carroll,
Agramonta and Lazear, at Havana. It
was their discovery that enabled us to
wipe the yellow fever out ef the Island
of Cuba and later on to clean up the
isthmus. Tbee doctors made expert
mejits which showed that yellow fever
could not be taken unless a man was
bitten by a yefiow fever mosquito. They
had men sleep In beds In which yellow
fever patients had died. They even had
them covered with the black Vomit ot a
yellow fever patient end to he exposed
to the emanations from yellow fever, but
none caught the disease until he was ac
tually bitten by a yellow fever mosquito,
which was in tha right condition to trans
mit the disease. ,
"That, story is too long to tell, now,'
continued Colonel Gorgas. "Those dis
coveries, however, will go down in history
as among the great events of the world,
and the American doctors at Havana
who permitted themselves to be bitten Dy
yellow fever mosquitoes and thereby took
the fever that they might make these In
vestigations deserve to be ranked among
the greatest of our heroes. Of them, Dr.
Lazear died. Or. Carroll took the disease,
JUaxzeL ctmtainintf mosa-uito. oil ve&ic& axJa -
IZHLkcaUy rips,Codt2ng
but recovered. Dr. Reed was absent at
the time the test was made.''
"Tell me It? a few words how you keep
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out the mosquitoes, Colonel Gorgas."
"Our first work here was to clean up
Panama and Colon, and especially all
I places on the zone within 200 yards ef
the tt UiementA. We cleaned the cities to
get rid of the yellow fever, and we have
drained all places about the settlements
and kept down the vegetation to fight tha
malaria. In tome places our drains are
made of cancreta and in others they are
open ditches which must be kept free
from grass. We have also subsoil drain
age. We have taKen away the breedlnjj
places and are trying to keep them away.
We have a mosquito brigade, which is
devoted to this business. We have also
housed our men in mosquito-proof quar
ters. Their homes are covered with
woven wire In such a way that they
practically sleei cut of doors safe from
al( insects. In addition to our drainage
system we sprinkle a'l such stagnant
water as we cannot drain with crude
petroleum to destroy the larvae or young
of the mosqultbs. The larvae are the
little wigglers you have seen In rath
barrels. They era the ' tadpoles of the
mosquito. It you will Imagine the mos
quitoes frogs. They are air breathers,
and must com to the top of the water
every few moments to get alrl They
bump their " noises against the oil scum,
anl are suffoctUud by u We use ' al.so
larvaelde, another j.rove.ntlvp, and we
have Imported fish from Barbados to
put In the fools. They ere fond of the
larvae and eat them,"
"I suppose you i'o a great deal of
our ... : ;
"We are using about 4 thousand barrels
a month, and u!o nbo'Jt ,W barrels of
larvncide. But you imwt remember that
the uee of oil Is to u certain extent a
confesf.lon of failure at tbe drainage.
It ,we could kfcej down tho breeding
places, 'of the iiicjqult.. Inciudlmr the
pools,, drains and water holes h'lden by
vegetation, we should riot need oil at all.
We are using less and Inn as we extend
our system ofsdralnage.".
. "The methods I have lvn are those
which relate to the town and ttle
ments and woTktnC plai.-p along the
Canal Zone. We have also certain way
of taking care uf the surveyors and
others who work 1n the Jungle on such
Jobs as thatof relocating t,he Panama
rauroaa, wnere tne sleeping places ar,
rone tan tly changing. We give such mh
dally doses of quinine, and protect the
cars and tents In which they sleep with
mosquito netting or woven wire. By
these means w have reduce! the malaria
here to a minimum, and the disease is
now. not as serious a feature as some
others which are prevalent among the
workmen of the temperate zones. "
, FRANK O. CARPENTER. v"
BEAUTIFUL HANDS
AND ARMS; ,
A FAMOUS BEAUTY GIVES
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IF YOUR FEET
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