The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-28
COL. GORGAS TALKS
ON ZONE SITUATION
Explains Panama System to
Large Audience
DEATH RATE rs REDUCED
Says White Dentb Rate Has Been Re-
duced to About Fifteen per Thou
sand, Which Is Less Than
New York City

Col William C. Gorgas, NJ. D., chief
sanitary officer for the Panama canal
zone, and ex-president of the American
Medical society," delivered an interest
ing lecture on sanitation at the 18TH
mus last night at the Chamber of Com
MERGE auditorium. The lecture was given
under the auspices of the Jefferson Coun-
ty Medical society, and the speaker was
introduced by DIR. B. L. Wyman, for
merly president of the society. The audi
ence which attended filed the audito-
rum.
Dr. Gorgas recited some interesting
facts in regard to the sanitary system
now in vougue at the canal zone, de-
claring that the average Caucasian could
live as healthily in that climate as In
any other If he observed the necessary
precautions. The reputation of the zone
as an unhealthy climate, he said, is
due to the fact that so many unaccli-
mated persons have attempted to live
there under normal conditions and have
contracted the diseases peculiar to the
climate.
The efforts of the sanitation depart
ment since 1904, he stated, have resulted
in the practical eradication of yellow
fever, the reduction in a very large de-
gree of the mortality from malaria and
the ability to easily cope with dysentery
and the plague and the diseases Of lesser
Importance. This has been accomplished
by the expenditure of an average sum
of 100000 annually, expended for the
encouragement of sanitary conditions
alone, or $2,000,o00 per year outlaid by the
sanitation department, including the main
tenance of hospitals quarantine stations,
an insane asylum and the like.
The mortality at the zone Is heaviest
among the West Indian negroes, Of
which there are $4,000 employed as Ia
borers, while the whites, who are more
observant of the rules of health, have
no more than normal death rate. The
department of sanitation at the isthmus
has jurisdiction over 100000 inhabitants,
the populations of the cities of Panama
and Colon included. The zone is divided
into 20 districts, a sanitary inspector in
charge of each. while 1000 men, of which
100 are physicians. constitute the per-
sonnet of the department of sanitation.
A number of hospitals are maintained
of which the principal is a receiving hos
pital at Panama, numt ring 1900 beds ~
hospital for the convG-escent, an asylum
for the insane and a leper colony are
included in the system, while special hos
pital trains travel daily between Colon
and Panama. A quarantine service has
been established on an elaborate scale,
the problem of infection being deemed
the most important.
By means OF this system the mortality
among the white inhabitants of the zone
has been reduced to about 10 per 1000
which Is less than the death rate OF
New York and other large cities of the
United States. The cost of the entire
system does not exceed four-tenths of a
cent per day for each inhabitant of the
zone DR. Gorgas stated that efforts are
being made to induce other South and
Central American districts to employ the
system and said he believes the rapid
settlement of the tropics by whites will
follow il 1t can be introduced more
widely
DR.. Gorgas Is extremely modest, and
never alludes to the fact that the sys-
tenn of sanitation which has made the
digging of the canal possible was of his
own conception and has been carrie
out under his direction. The mention of
DR.. Wyman last night that he is a ma
tive Albanian was the signal for warm
applause.