How a cleanly man can go and await his turn in a barber shop to be shaved two or three times weekly by dirty hands, and be combed by dirty combs and brushes, and have his head dry-rubbed by hands that have been dry-rubbing other heads without being washed, when he can do the same himself at home with clean hands and implements and without waste of time, is almost incomprehensible. To gaze into a barber shop is bad enough. Flashy mirrors and massive furniture cannot compensate for dirty methods. Barbers dare not use brushes with white bristles, for they would look frightful before night. They would have to be washed.
The hotel clerk was a polyglot French Canadian who, like the barber, the barber’s assistant and a large proportion of the other trained employees about town, had traveled considerably before coming to Panama, and would probably travel again in search of more congenial climes and more remunerative work as soon as rivals should come and conditions improve. He spoke French well and Spanish and English indifferently, and was willing to talk to any one until some one else claimed his attention. He fitted in his place very nicely, for he possessed that complicated lack of system that forms an essential part of tropical hotel management. He was unfailingly obliging and affably irritable, as forgetful and unreliable men are apt to be. In giving him orders, it was always well to wait and see them carried out. If one wanted anything sent to one’s room, or brought down, it was well to wait until the gong sounded, the boy called down, the clerk called up, and the message was correctly delivered and intelligently understood; otherwise it was liable to be given wrong, be misunderstood or be forgotten. When time hung heavily on one’s hands this supervision of the clerk and bell boy served to help the hot half hours move on.
Doctor Echeverría appeared at last, full of half a roll and an orange and ready for the morning’s work. He had sent his daily cablegram to his wife before taking coffee, but had not yet heard from her. As he was the official head of medical affairs at Limón, he wished to be prompt in paying his respects to the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone, Dr. Wm. G. Gorgas, and the chief of the Marine Hospital service, Dr. H. R. M. Carter, and the chief of the Quarantine department, Maj. L. A. LaGarde. He could not rest until he had done his duty as a public health officer, a brother physician and a courteous gentleman. He did not realize that the social and ceremonial conscience of the Anglo-American race was not as sensitive as that of the Latin-American. While these chiefs would have been glad to see him, they were bound up in their work and would not have taken notice of a little delay on his part. So we drove to Ancón Hill, which was a short distance beyond the railroad station, and arrived there about nine o’clock. Leaving the cab we slowly walked up the beautiful avenue that led along the hillside through the grounds.
The location of the hospital on the slope of Ancón Hill was certainly well chosen, for the ground was high and the view unobstructed. The driveway was shaded by palm trees and bordered with well-kept, sloping lawns upon which neat-looking frame houses were scattered. It seemed to me almost preferable to be sick up there than well in the dingy, dusty, sun-baked city below. The medical officers certainly had the choice place of residence on the isthmus, for here were fresh breezes, clean, well-drained grounds, quiet surroundings and a charming outlook upon semi-mountainous, tropical scenery. The Tivoli has since been built here and its construction must certainly have given the “black eye” to Gran Hotel Centrál. But to those who wish to know what Panama really is Gran Centrál is the place. Those who go to Tivoli read guide books and forget; those who go to Gran Centrál need no guide books, and never forget.
We did not find any of the chiefs at their homes on the hillside; they were down town at their offices in the government building in Plaza Centrál, from which we had started. We had gone from them instead of to them. These men get up at daybreak, take a cup of coffee, and presumably half a roll, and go down to their offices and transact a good day’s office work by eleven o’clock. Then they drive back home, eat a hearty breakfast and remain in their garden of paradise with their families until the midday heat begins to be tempered by the regular afternoon breeze, when they go to work again.
But we had a pleasant chat with Mrs. LaGarde, the wife of Doctor LaGarde. She gave us all sorts of information from a woman’s standpoint, and proved to us that although the exteriors were beautiful and perhaps enjoyable at Ancón, and the hospital a charming place to get sick and get well in, the comforts of housekeeping and living constituted, according to United States habits and standards, a sort of seamy side of life for these hard-working semi-exiles. The houses had not the places to put things in, nor the conveniences for cooking and other details of housekeeping that are considered essential in the North. Closet room is a Yankee luxury. Clothes would not dry except in the sun and wind, and if put away would get wet again. Insects were annoying and screens had not yet been provided. Alterations about the house had to be made, and makeshifts adopted. There was neither running water nor drainage. But Mrs. LaGarde was cheerful and even breezy in her talk, just as if she not only enjoyed giving the information but also overcoming the difficulties. With the assistance of the United States she has, I believe, overcome some of them since.
Doctor Carter’s son hunted up the young resident doctors. They were engaged peeping into microscopes, but they cheerfully gave up the private matinee they were having over their germs and, after having given us a peep at malarial high life, showed us through the hospital buildings. We found Mr. Carter and the young doctors exceedingly painstaking and courteous, and we afterward also found Doctor Gorgas, Doctor Carter and Doctor LaGarde even more so. A more genial and gentlemanly set of men in a quiet American way I have scarcely met. They seemed to have become imbued with the spirit of Spanish courtesy without having lost their American frankness and sincerity, and bore their great and unusual responsibilities with cheerfulness and modesty.
There were about twenty hospital wards, in separated one-story frame buildings, arranged in three curved tiers on the beautifully terraced slope of the hill. In fact, the ornamental grounds were so large and elaborate that the expense of keeping them up was quite an item. But the French had plenty of money, while they had it, and spent it artistically and generously, while they spent it. And there is no doubt but they built well, since the majority of the houses were found in a good state of preservation, and have been repaired at small expense.
Ancón Hospital had at the time less than a hundred patients, two thirds of whom were negroes, and over half of whom were employees of the canal commission. To be laid up in those clean, well-kept wards and be waited upon by those tidy, cheerful nurses must have been a great luxury to the poor black devils. To die there would be enjoying themselves to death, no matter where they finally went to.
Superficial swamps all along the Zone were being drained or filled, in hopes of exterminating the malaria breeding mosquitoes. About the Ancón hospital, malaria had already practically disappeared. The extent of malaria in the Canal Zone had been demonstrated by blood analyses. At Bohio the blood of forty-four school children had been examined and the malarial organism found in twenty-nine cases. After they had taken twelve grains of quinine daily for ten days the organism was only found in five. It was also found that seventy per cent. of the 12,000 inhabitants of twelve villages along the Zone had the malarial organism in the blood. This is largely the cause of the prevalent anemia.