The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-17

shall institute. That is the real prob
lem to be handled in this situation.
To handle it properly we must eXer-
else a most vigorous police supervis-
ion over the whole of the canal zone,
with adequate sanitary and health in
spection services. The people must be
taught the value of decent living, and
to teach them we must begin at the
very beginning of the lesson. They
live now in houses with corrugated
iron roofs and corrugated iron parti-
tions, or in the meanest matched huts.
In the first class of abodes the mois-
lures in the atmosphere congeals con-
stantly; in the second there is a per-
petual natural dampneSS. To add to
the difficulty, these people believe that
the miasmatic mists that develope the
country are the cause of all their ills.
They, therefore, shut themselves up
as closely as possible at night, abso-
lutely excluding fresh air from their
homes This habit but accentuates the
evils resulting from living in the damp
abodes have described, and this COM
bination of circumstances has produced
a veritable scourge of rheumatism and
tuberculosis in d country where neither
should be known.
1T will be our business, therefore,
not only to afford sanitary arrange
ments and surroundings, and teach
these people to use and value those
improvements. We must actually teach
them how to live, how to appreciate
fresh air, and what manner of places
they should live in. For the contrac-
tors and other white men who will
come here to direct the canal work,
as we'll as for the negro or coolie labor
that must be imported, there will be a
different lesson needed.
Strictest Regulations Required.
People going into tropical countries
are prone to dysentery, and certain to
be more or less disposed to malaria.
1t was the experience of the French
that new arrivals on the isthmus paid
no attention to this obstacle to good
health, and after working all day I'M
der the burning sun or in the driving
rain would spend the night at drink
ing and carousing, just as men might
do in the Northern climates. The re-
suit was speedy debilitation and great
susceptibility to disease. Our people
and those we bring here to work I'M
der our direction must be taught, or
made, to avoid mode of living which
made former canal workers die like
flies in the falltime. Neither of these
lessons to be taught will be easy; the
instructors must be rigorous and un-
bending, and for that reason the ad-
ministration for the canal zone must
be especially intelligent and capable
If, however, we can succeed in in
culcating these lessons the problem
of sanitary conditions in the second
division l have made will be practi-
cally solved. Me must, of course, sup
ply some simple facilities, but these
VIII involve no difficulties. The wa
tersheds in this division will have to
be rigidly protected from pollution.
crematories for the moderation of
garbage and fecal matter will have to
be established, and a garbage collec-
ton system instituted so as to pre-
vent offal from reaching the streams;
all the residents of the canal zone
must be compelled to drink altered
and boiled water and an extensive
system of lighthouses, with enforce
ment Of regulations az TO bathing,
must be instituted. There is nothing
complex in these requirements; nor
will there be any difficulty expert
enced in Panama where, as 1 have