It was in one of the many wooden bungalows built in the time of De Lesseps, and facing Limon Bay, that I took up my first quarters on the isthmus. The house is quite typical of hundreds throughout the Zone occupied by the more responsible workers on the canal, and in every way possible the comfort of the occupants is considered, and the accommodation is ample for all ordinary purposes.
The verandahs surrounding the houses are securely screened with fine-meshed copper gauze to prevent the intrusion of the fever-bearing stegomyia mosquito and of the thousand other noxious insects which are the pests of this tropical country.
Every window is covered in the same manner, the doors which open from the verandahs being furnished with a strong spring, ensuring their being kept shut. The water cisterns are all covered, as are the rain-water tubs placed around the buildings, and there is no possibility of any insect finding a suitable breeding ground. During the whole of my stay on the isthmus I seldom encountered a mosquito, and it is no exaggeration to say that this insect runs serious risk of sharing the fate of the dodo.
The first work that the Americans undertook upon taking possession of their new territory, was to put into operation all means conceivable for the destruction of the mosquitoes, a work that would have been impossible if the Commission had not possessed the power to direct the sanitary and health measures in the towns of Panama and Colon, which both lie outside of the Canal Zone, but are so intimately connected with it as to be sources of danger, in case of epidemics. The maintenance of law and order is also vested in the United States, in the event of the Republic of Panama proving unable to cope with it.
For the greatest difficulty the Americans have had to contend with has been the climatic conditions so fatal to the workers during the construction of the Panama Railway in 1850, and throughout the operations of the two ill-fated French Canal Companies.
The careful attention which the Health Department of the Canal Commission has given to the sanitation and purification of their new territory, as well as of the towns of Colon and Panama, has amply justified the enormous expense by the wonderful results obtained. When one considers that yellow fever has always been regarded by tropical Americans as indigenous to their climate, it is indeed surprising that this disease has been practically exterminated from the isthmus of Panama in so short a time.
Houses have been entered, cleansed and fumigated; marshes drained, stagnant water treated with petroleum and the bush and scrub around all dwelling houses cut away, until haunt and breeding ground are alike denied to the germ-bearing mosquito.
Everywhere one comes across members of the Sanitary Corps, either lowly negroes and half-bred Indians with cans of petroleum from which they drop a small quantity of oil on any stray pool or puddle that they come to; or the doctors ever vigilant in their inspections of the most out-of-the-way holes and corners in which dirt or disease might lurk.
A CAMP AT BALBOA.