The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-11
Munchausen Tales as to
 Conditions on the lsthmus

if no handicap is put upon him. no
 one in Panama doubts that success will eventually crown his efforts.
 The chief sanitary office has just is- sued report reviewing the work along sanitary lines since its inaugu- ! ration. Some of the facts set forth therin may be interesting in connec-
 ton with. as we'll as cumulative of.
 the lurid reports disseminated at
 home.
 Health Statistics.
 On the last day of April, this year. with about $500 employees on the pay
 roll. there were onnly ITS sick in the
 hospitals, 33S admissives to hospitals during that month, ana twelve deaths.
 This would give an annual admission rate of 426.24 per thousand. con- stantly sick rate of 1874 per thous- and. and death rate of 15.15 per Thousand. per year. What the health conditions might have been had this sanitary work not been done. can best be estimated by taking the statistics of the French during their first year of work here. The conditions are suf- ficiently similar, to make the compar- ison extremely fair.
 In the year 1881, the first year of their work. the French had an ad- mission rate of 630.3S. and a death
 rate of 6s.s0 per thousand. If this sick and death rate be extended through the year with the same num- Der of employees. it means that 4,066 men are taken sick, and IA die. The French for the same number of men, and the same length of time. would have 5.S50 men taken sick, and 620 would have succumbed. It thus seems
 fair to say that the sanitary work dur ing the year saved the Commission the lives of 476 employees.
 ta the year has been slightly less than one per thousand, while the French during their first year had a death rate of twenty-four per thousand from this disease.
 It may be well to state here that the French never took any preventive measures in connection with the health of their employees, but when they were l taken sick, took good care of them. Reason of Heavy Mortality. As l have set forth in previous let ters to The Advertiser. the death rate in Panama exceeds that of any city in the world where the medical bureau of the United States keeps any record. This is due to the heavy mortality among the lower class natives who are not overly clean, and who shut them selves up at night in small rooms with out even a peep hole for air to come in. Thus it is that there will be oftentimes | four or five persons sleeping in the same room and breathing the same air over and over again all during the night. Travellers say that this Is the | only city in the world where the peo- pie. especially those of the lower class, have such an innate aversion to fresh l air at nights. It has been an idea in- bred through generations that the night air is fatal, and they overlook
 the fact entirely that the foul air they breathe at night is Q hundred times more so.
 This Is amply exemplified by com pairing the death rate in the cities of | Panama and Colon. with that of the
 Canal Zone. whore the people live freer.
 and are in the main Jamaicans who
 are not possessed of the superstitious | notion mentioned above.
 In Panama the annual death rate is 67.2S per thousand; in Colon, 4s.13, and tn the Canal Zone 7.S6. The death rate in Montgomery runs from 12 to IS to the thousand, so this will afford | the reader an idea of the heavy mor- | tality that exists in this city among
 the native classes. Twelve hundred
 and ffty-six people died in Panama from January 1, 1904, to January l. 1905. out of a total population of 20. .250. | The record of death by ages shows | that the death rate is largest below year, and next between 20 and 30 years. I