Sanitation in Panama

Yellow fever for two hundred years before the Spanish-American War caused great loss of life and much destruction of wealth. Every few years portions of the United States would...

After consultation, the Reed Board determined to experiment to see whether the mosquito really did convey yellow fever. But it was necessary to have a good deal of money and suf...

Dr. Reed wished to make his demonstrations as convincing and spectacular as possible. It was an entirely new idea, and his conclusions excited a great deal of adverse comment an...

At this time, February, 1901, I was health officer of the city of Havana. The efforts of the Department had been concentrated for more than two years previous upon controlling y...

The Army Board had demonstrated that the mosquito, to become infected, had always to bite some patient with yellow fever within the first three days of his disease. It was evide...

From the account already given of yellow fever it is evident that the parasite has to be introduced into a locality, either in the body of a human being sick of yellow fever, or...

As illustrating the way in which we looked at conditions at Havana at the time that our mosquito work was first begun, I will quote correspondence which took place between Dr. R...

From the dawn of history man has made some attempt to prevent disease. He saw on all sides evidences of the fact that he had suffered from disease through no fault of his own; t...

The geographical limits of yellow fever, when first encountered by the white man, were not very wide. They were contained within a zone limited on the north by the twentieth par...

Early in the year 1902, while still stationed at Havana, I wrote to Surgeon-General Sternberg concerning the discoveries made by the Reed Board, and the application made of thes...

From the very beginning insuperable difficulties arose in the way of getting supplies. Very little could be obtained on the Isthmus, and the supply departments in the United Sta...

At the same time that yellow-fever work was commenced, an attack was also made upon malaria. Mr. Joseph L. Le Prince, who was in charge of similar work in Havana, was placed in...

Another sanitary district had to be established about twenty miles east of Porto Bello, at Nombre de Dios. Here we had a force of some two hundred men who dredged the sand that...

Each of the twenty-five districts into which the Zone was divided, as far as the general sanitary work was concerned, was in the charge of a sanitary inspector. The sanitary ins...

Dr. John W. Ross, of the United States Navy, Major Louis A. La Garde, of the Army, and I had all had a large experience in tropical military service. We were, therefore, thoroug...

In the early years of our construction malaria was very common and gave a great deal of trouble. As I have explained before, malaria is caused by a small animal parasite which l...

The medical and surgical service of Ancon Hospital rapidly developed so as to win the confidence of the civil population all around. Not only did patients come to us from the Zo...

Panama Bay runs straight south from Ancon mountain about one hundred miles. It is filled with a great number of islands, which are evidently the tops of mountains projecting abo...

Another sanitary precaution that the Health Department determined upon was the segregation of the lepers. The Republic of Panama required by law the segregation of these people,...

Panama, from its situation and location, was peculiarly liable to infection from other places in both North and South America. It was the gateway through which a large traffic p...

In 1906, when our malarial rate was highest, we had eight hundred out of every thousand of our employees admitted to hospitals on account of malaria. In 1913 we had only seventy...

The work of the Sanitary Department of Panama has without question been a most useful adjunct in the construction of the Canal. It has enabled this work to be carried through wi...