The Washington herald., 1913-10-22
COL. v. c. GORGAS
VISITS CAPITAL
Sanitary Officer of Canal Zone
En- Route to South
Africa.
WILL FIGHT PNEUMONIA
Disease Is Now Raging Among 200,-
600 Negro Miners-Dis-
cusses His Plans.

Col. William Crawford Gorgas, the man
who made possible the building of the
Panama Canal, slipped into Washington
yesterday and is registered with Mrs.
Gorgas at the Willard. They arrived
from the isthmus on board the steamer
Ancon in New York Monday. They were
accompanied to New Yorh by Lieut.. Co.
William Luther Sibert. who is responsible
for the canals most impressive feature,
the. great dam at Gatun.
Col Gorgas is the man who brought
about the sanitation of the Canal Zone.
He has been granted leave from the 18TH
mus, where he is chief sanitary officer.
The leave of absence granted Col
Gorgas by this government to go to South
Africa has just begun, and he expects to
leave within a few days for London, en-
route to Johannesburg. There he will
undertake the work. hitherto unsuccess-
ful, of devising means of cutting down
the heavy mortality from pneumonia
among the 100000 negro miners.
DIR. Darling in Party.
Col Gorgas will take with him on his
mission DR.. Samuel Darling, the bac-
teriologist, who has been one of his
principal colleagues in the Ancon Hos
pitaL and Maj. Robert Noble. the ex-
ment on the Isthmus.
Tt is difficult for me to say Just what
will confront US in the Rand" said Col.
Gorgas, at the Willard last night. Most
of the communications 1 have had con-
cerning the work We are to do have
been by cable with Samuel Evans, who
is chairman of the board of directors
IF the Chamber of Mines at Johannes
burg. He is also president of the Crown
Mining Company, one of the large con-
cerns in the Rand consolidation.
The district affected is a strip about
sixty miles long. in the center of which
is the city of johannesburg. I expect
- arrive there about December 1, stop
ping on my way to study conditions at
the Kimberly mines After a month in
south Africa, We shall leave for the
lsthmus early in January. possibly going
~ way of Buenos Ayres.
Fought Disease i'm Panama.
We had very serious epidcmics OF
,neumonia among the negroes at Pam
ana during the first two years of our
york. Col. Gorgas explained. We at
.ributed it to infection from contact
ith the whites. Influenza, from which
none of the negroes who arrived so rap
.Gly on the Isthmus seemed TO be i'm
n:une. was one of the principal direct
'auses. as pneumonia is one Of the prin-
rlpal sequiturs of that disease. Within
the first few months practically every
negro-thirty or forty thousand-had in
tGenza- and a large number of them
developed pneumonia.
These conditions ended by 1867. large
~. l think, because the influx of negroes
as cut down. and those already on the
Isthmus scattered ana spread out in dill
IeTent localities.
Our suggestions at the Rand probably
will take the form of recommendations
along these lines, that is in regard to the
segregation OF new men, the employment
Of men who have lived for some time in
the locality. on certain jobs, and similar
details of administration.
Col. Sibert expects to get back TO
Panama in time to witness the passage
Of the first vessel from ocean to ocean.
He was on the first boat TO go through
the Gatun Locks into the Lake, and If
nothing happens he will be on the first
to go the entire length of the canal.
This event will take the place. he thinks.
about the middle of December.