The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-11-24

FrirhtfuI Mortality Among the Com
munity at COIOn-Advice of the Phys
icians-The Only Safe COurse-A Pecu
liar Form of Fever.
A certain grim fascination attaches K
the idea OF a community in which death
has bee 1me commonplace. A man who
establishes himself in Colon or Panama,
or who undertakes to spend any consider
able time on the line, knows that the az
RreRate mortality around him is some
thing friRhtfuI. He knows of specific
cases in which the statistics of SINAI
numhoOr nVes have Deen sucn as to IN
dictate certain death as his portion. de
knows that within the last five months
the death rate among the chief resident
officials of the canal company has been
more than SO per cent, mortality which
If extended to all classes of the commun-
ity would exterminate every man, woman
and child on the isthmus in six months.
He knows, perhaps, that on the 1st OF
last October thirty Italians arrived at Co
Ion under agreement to serve the Soclete
des Travaux PubIques ct Constructions
de Paris as foremen; that of these twenty
nine were in perfect health and robust
condition and the remaining one only sut-
fering from debility caused by excessive
sea sickness; that they were at once sent
TO the Enterprise d'Emperador, where
.shey were excellently housed and had
very advantage of medical attendance;
that on the 23d of the same month only
Eve of them survived-a death rate
which, If it were universal, would depoP-
uIate the earth in less than a month
AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE.
He knows, it is true, of one man who
lived on the isthmus nineteen years, and
who is still in good health. But he knows,
oF ybrN hoy fhnra
and fifteen years, and then died after
only four or five days illness. All this is
Derplexing. But he is the more perpIeXed
when he stops to consider that In the IN
stance of the five chief officials out OF
six, and the twenty-five Italian foremen
ont of thirty, the mortality was not from
q contagion, was not even from UNIFORM
infection. One man died of common
remittent malaria fever, another OF the
most virulent type of yellow fever, an
other of a bilious fever Of an 1ndistlnct
character, a fourth of acute Brights dis
ease following a successfully resisted case
of yellow fever. He knows that he ought
not to drink heavily. But he discovers
that the climate superinduces an 1ntoler-
able lassitude which nothing but frequent
stimulants seem to relieve.
One physician prescribes to him regi-
men which is thoroughly impracticable,
tells him to avoid the hot sun, the sudden
showers. the poisonous air Of the night
and early morning. Another physician
shruRs his shoulders and says: my GEAR
fellow, dress, eat, drink, live, just as you
did at home, and don't worry None OF
us know anything about the predlsposlnS
conditions of these fevers. But we are
not all of US candid enough to say so.
Rut above all. don't worry" There would
be some comfort in this last genial coun-
sci if it were not interrupted by the ar
rival of a messenger to inform the doctor
that such and such man has been taKen
i'll that another is dying, and a third. just
dead.
The plain truth is the only safe course
for q man on the isthmus to pursue Is 10
leave the isthmus Immediately, and even
then he may, for all that he knows, carry
with him the embryo of a fatal illness
which may not develop itself for weeks
and even months. If ever country
seemed to have incurred the dlspleasure
of Divine Providence that country Is the
Isthmus of Panama.
PECU LIAR FORM OF FEVER
SpeciaI interest attaches to a peculiar
form of septic malarial fever occasionally
met with in Panama and Colon. rms
fever has but recently been recognized by
the official physicians, and no Description
of It has yet been published, either IL
medical Journals or otherwise. 1t IS known
among the physicians as Bethlehem
fever 1t is of a continuous type, does
not partake of the characteristics OF
either typhoid or yellow fever, and yet
Is not amenable to the quinine treatment
Its course is very much that of typhoid
Int most mortem examinations fail tx
show the characteristic typhoid LESSONS.
From pathological point OF view II ..1 !.
To be regretted that the religious teneu
dominant among the foreign residents II
Panama make it impossible to perform
autopsies except in sOmo isolated cases
And it is owing to this circumstance that
the fever in question was not long since
described and discussed in the literature
of the epidemiolOgy. The post morVeH
examinations have now, however, aggre
gated sufficiently to place beyond dispute
the fact that the fever is clearly d1stlnc
from typhoid. Its traces are cerebral con
oestion, gastric and enteric hemorrhagl'
effusions, and in general the appearance
CONSEQUENT upon death from common
malaria. Most of the cases occur among
welLto-do residents of PananIa.-CoIol
Cor. New York Tribune.