Sanitation in Panama

by William Crawford Gorgas

But I believe that this aiding in the construction of the Canal is not the most important function that the sanitary work at Panama has played. The Canal Zone, for the past four hundred years, ever since it has been known by the white man, has been one of the most unhealthy spots in all the tropical world, and this fact has been generally known and recognized by all nations which have had any commercial importance.

About the time of the discovery of America, Europeans began to visit and colonize the tropics, but it was early discovered that the white man could not live and thrive with such conditions and surroundings as existed there. It seemed to be demonstrated that there was something in the climate that sapped his constitution and broke his health. This statement applies to white children to an even greater extent than to the adult.

The great colonizing nations had been the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the English. Their experience had all been exactly similar from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present time—that the white man could not live and thrive in the tropics, nor could he leave behind him in those regions a healthy progeny. By all men everywhere it was believed that this was due to tropical climatic conditions, which could not be combated, and that therefore the white man was permanently barred from building up any great civilization in these regions.

Man, like all other animals, must necessarily have developed in one locality. If we accept the modern explanation, generally received by educated persons, Darwinism, all life at present on the globe must have descended from one single cell. If we take some individual animal at present living, a dog, for instance, we could trace his ancestry back to the first cell, if we could obtain all the facts in the case. By very slow changes, genus after genus and species after species developed from this first cell, each genus and each species differing slightly from the one preceding.

An individual varying very slightly from the other individual of his species, becomes the progenitor of a new species, provided the variation accords with his surroundings so as to fit him better for the struggle of life. But all of the new species must descend directly from the one pair which produces these favorable variations in their progeny. Every species, therefore, such as the dog, must originate in some one locality. If at any time this species of animal is found in all parts of the world, it must have slowly spread from the locality in which it originated. The dog, therefore, came to his present development in some one part of the world. As he is now found in all parts of the world, he must have spread from this one locality in which he originated.

Exactly the same argument applies to man. If we consider man’s condition in his earlier stages, we can see that there must have been a period when he had neither fire nor clothing. At this time he must have lived in parts of the world where the temperature was that now found between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. As we know him now, he could survive the year around without fire and clothing only within this region. He might live a little north and south of these parallels of latitude, but not very far. Very few individuals of a community which attempted to spend a winter in the latitude of Washington, without either fire or clothing, would be alive when the warm weather of spring returned. It is pretty certain, therefore, that man lived exclusively in the tropics, up to the discovery of fire and clothing.

There was a period, then, in man’s existence when the environment found in the tropics was better suited to his life than that found in the present temperate zones. Conditions gradually changed, until affairs were exactly reversed, and the temperate regions became better suited for man’s healthy life than the tropical regions. This was the condition of affairs when we first begin to get some knowledge of man, at the early dawn of history. When we first begin to learn anything about him historically, the most vigorous and healthy races, mentally and physically, were to be found in the temperate zones. The conditions that brought about this change of habitat in man were probably the spread of the various infectious diseases within the tropics. The hot tropical regions were much better fitted for the life of the germs which caused these infectious diseases than were the temperate regions, for exactly the same reasons that these tropical regions better suited the life and development of man. Due to his superior intelligence and superior powers of locomotion, man was enabled to spread through and occupy the tropical regions long before the germs of the various infectious diseases were able to do so.

Yellow fever, for instance, was able to extend very little beyond the region where it originally developed, until man came along with his ships, and in this way enabled the yellow-fever germ to begin its travels about the world. As yellow-fever developed in America, the germ did not begin its travels until Columbus brought his ships into the Caribbean Sea. As the infections spread through the tropics, the environment in those regions became unfavorable to man, to such an extent that he ceased to be able to improve in his mental and physical characteristics. But as the environment of regions outside the tropics was still more unfavorable, actually deadly, he had no escape.

At this period, then, man found himself inhabiting tropical regions where sanitary conditions, the infections, were very unfavorable to him, and he was unable to migrate to the temperate zones, because the sanitary conditions there, cold, were deadly to him.

About this time, two great sanitary discoveries, the most important ever made by man, namely, fire and clothing, came to the knowledge of our tropical ancestors. The greatest sanitarian that the human race has ever produced was probably the individual who discovered fire, and next in importance, the individual who first wore some kind of clothing. These two discoveries enabled man to overcome the hitherto insurmountable sanitary obstacle of the temperate regions, namely, cold. With the application of these two sanitary discoveries, the human race was enabled to migrate from the tropics and continue healthy development in the temperate regions.