Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

Two large hospitals are maintained by the Canal Commission at Colon and at Ancon, together with smaller ones for emergency cases at Culebra and other points along the line. The two principal hospitals will be kept open after the completion of the Canal, but not of course to their full capacity. Ancon alone has accommodations for more than 1500 patients, and when the army of labor has left the Zone there can be no possible demand for so great an infirmary. Both of these hospitals were inherited from the French, and the one at Colon has been left much in the condition they delivered it in, save for needed repairs and alterations. Its capacity has not been materially increased. The Ancon Hospital however has become one of the great institutions of its kind in the world. The French gave us a few buildings with over 300 patients sheltered in tents. The Americans developed this place until now more than fifty buildings are ranged along the side of Ancon Hill. When the French first established the hospital they installed as nurses a number of sisters of St. Vincent with Sister Rouleau as Sister Superior. The gentle sisters soon died. The yellow fever carried them off with heart-rending rapidity. Sister Marie however left a monument which will keep her fair fame alive for many years yet to come. She was a great lover of plants, and the luxuriance of the tropical foliage was to her a never-ending charm. To her early efforts is due the beauty of the grounds of the Ancon Hospital, where one looks between the stately trunks of the fronded royal palms past a hillside blazing with hibiscus, and cooled with the rustling of leaves of feather palms and plantains to where the blue Pacific lies smooth beneath the glowing tropic sun. Beside the beauty of its surroundings the hospital is eminently practical in its plan. The many separate buildings permit the segregation of cases, and the most complete and scientific ventilation.

THE SANITARIUM AT TABOGA INHERITED FROM THE FRENCH

Making the hospital attractive was one of the points insisted upon by Col. Gorgas. Some of the doctors think that possibly it has been a wee bit overdone. Some of the folks along the Zone look on a brief space spent in the hospital as a pleasant interlude in an otherwise monotonous life. As they have thirty days’ sick leave with pay every year they are quite prone to turn to the pleasant slopes of Ancon Hill, with a week at the charming sanitarium on Taboga Island as a fitting close—a sort of café parfait to top off the feast. Surgery even seems to have lost its terrors there. “Why, they even bring their friends to be operated on”, said one of the surgeons laughingly when talking of the popularity of the hospital among the Zone dwellers.

A FETE DAY AT TABOGA

FEATHER PALM AT ANCON

Charity cases have numbered as many as 66,000 a year and the records show that during the period of greatest activity on the Zone as many as 70 different nationalities were ministered to. The question of color was often an embarrassing one. The gradations of shades between pure white to darkest African is so exceedingly delicate in Panama that there is always difficulty in determining whether the subject under consideration belongs to the “gold” or the “silver” class, for the words black and white are tactfully avoided in the Zone in their reference to complexions. “This is my plan”, said Col. Mason in charge of the hospital. “On certain days the patients are allowed visitors. When the color of the inmate is problematical, as is usually the case with women, I ask if she wants her husband to visit her. If she does and he proves to be a negro, she goes into the colored ward. If she still insists that she is white, she can go into the white ward, but must dispense with his visits”.

Under our treaty the Zone sanitary department takes charge of the insane of Colon and Panama, and a very considerable share of the grounds at Ancon is divided off with barbed wire for their use. The number of patients runs well into the hundreds, with very few Americans. Most are Jamaica negroes and the hospital authorities say that they are mentally unbalanced by the rush and excitement of life on the Zone. I never happened to see a Jamaica negro excited unless it happened to be a Tivoli Hotel waiter confronted with the awful responsibility of an extra guest at table. Then the excitement took the form of deep melancholy, exaggerated lethargy, and signs of suicidal mania in every facial expression.