Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-09-12
THE PANAMA CANAL.
A COUNTRY IN WHICH DEATH HAS
BECOME COMMONPLACE.

liar Form of Fever.
A certain grim fascination attaches TO
the idea of a community in which death
has bee Jme commonplace. A man who
esta ablishe5 himself in Colon or Panama,
or who undertakes to spend any consider
able time on the line, knows that the ag-
gregate mortality around him is some
thing frightfuI He knows of specific
cases in which the statistics of a small
number of lives have been such as to in
dictate certain death rs his portion. He
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, a 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 lst Of
last October thirty Italians arrived at Co
Ion under agreement to serve the SOc.e,e
deS TravauX PuJhqueS ct Constructions
de Paris as fOremen; that of these twenty
nine were in perfec ct health and robust
condition and the remaining on, only suf-
fering from debility caused by excessive
sea sickness; that they were at once sent
to the Enterprise EmperadOr, where
they were eXcellently housed and had
every advantage of medical attendance;
that on the sd of the same month only
five Of them surv1ved-a death rate
which, if it were universal, would depop-
ulate 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,
too, Of men who have lived there tor ten
and fifteen years, and then died Hl-rT
only four or five days iIluesS. Al tbs IS
perplexing But he is the more perpt Nei
when he stops to consider that IN the Iu-
stance of the five chief officials out OF
six, and the twenty-five Italian fOrem"n
out of thirty, the mortality was no. y IN
a contagiOn, was not even from unIfJTil
infection. One man uied of n common
remittent malaria fever, another of the
most virulent type of yellow fever, En-
o,her of bilious fever Of an indIst'cct
character, 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 intoler-
able lassitude which nothing but frequent
stimulants seem to relieve.
One physician prescribes to him rssl-
.
/ tells him to avoid the hot sun, the sudden
showers, the poisonous air of the night
and early morning. Another physician
shrugS his shoulders and says: My dear
( fellow, dress, eat, drink, live, just rs you
/ did at home and don't worry. None of
Us know anything about the predisposing
! conditions of these fevers. But We are
! not all of US candid enough to say 20.
| But, 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 a man has been taken
/ ill, that another Is dying, and a third just
dead.
! The plain truth Is the only safe course
| for man on the isthmus to pursue Is TO
| 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 a country
seemed to have incurred the displessure
of d vine Providence that country is the
Isthmus of Panama
PECU LIAR FORM OF FEVER
Special interest attaches to a peculiar
form Of septic malarial fever occasionally
met with in Panama and Colon. This
fever has but recently been recognized by
the official physicians, and no description
of it has yet been published, either in
medical journals OF otherwise. 1t Is known
among the physicians as Bettelheim's
fever 1t is of continuous type, does
not partake of the characteristics OF
either typhoid or yellow fever, and yss
is not amenable to the quinine treatment
Its course is very much that Of typhoid,
T,niF. .Qri Al