The dream of
navigators and practical engineers was taken in hand by Ferdinand de
Lesseps in January, 1881. The story of the French Canal Company is a
tragedy unparalleled in the history of finance, and, one may add, in the
ravages of tropical disease. Yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, typhus,
carried off in nine years nearly twenty thousand employees. The
mortality frequently rose above 100, sometimes to 130, 140 and in
September, 1885, it reached the appalling figure of 176.97 per thousand
work people. This was about the maximum death rate of the British Army
in the West Indies in the nineteenth century.
When, in 1904, the United States undertook to complete the Canal,
everyone felt that the success or failure was largely a matter of
sanitary control. The necessary knowledge existed, but under the
circumstances could it be made effective? Many were doubtful.
Fortunately, there was at the time in the United States Army a man who
had already served an apprenticeship in Cuba, and to whom more than to
anyone else was due the disappearance of yellow fever from that island.
To a man, the profession in the United States felt that could Dr. Gorgas
be given full control of the sanitary affairs of the Panama Zone, the
health problem, which meant the Canal problem, could be solved.
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