The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-08-11
PROGRESS IN THE TROPICS
DEPENDS ON SANTA TON
Great Industrial and Commercial Enterprises Impos
sible Without Safeguard of General Health South
America Gets Lesson From Canal Building
ny s. p. WERNER.

ny 8. r. WERNER. ....
(Formerly ono Of Con- Gorous's Neu-
fsnants In the sanitation Of Panan,d,
and otth previous experience IN the
troptos covering a period Of more than
thirteen yeora) "
Written especially for the Latin ADe,|-
odw Section Of THE SUN.
Tropical America is waking IN TO tho
value OF sanitation as an essential ele-
ment to the successful conduct of in
oustrfal and commercial enterprises.
turing tho ten years Of my experience
there have seen many undertakings
fail utterly because the promoters aid
not understand that without sanitation
they could not succeed Specifically
among these failures have been those
OF the Bayano Lumber Company, the
Boston Rubber Company, the Ell En-
canto Plantation project, the Rio Chilibre
mahogany concern. the Trinidad Colony
scheme, the Cali coal mines and the
Cauva sugar plantations. The Oldest
gold mine In America, and the most
remunerative at tho time Il closed
down, that Of the Darien, went to pieces
from the same cause.
business cannot go on without labor
and labor cannot and will not stay on
the Job when decimated by endemic and
epidemic disease. II was Mr.. Roose-
velts grasp OF scientific principles as
naturalist which caused him to back
Col Gorgas on the mosquito theory
when practical men were threatening
to destroy his work, and to hold the
Colonel there till Panama was made
the healthiest place in America Gas
statistics show)-just as his capacity
in scientific matters in another field en-
abled him to turn down the majority
nf ha 60 A.
with the minority for lock type OF
canal, as against the sea level project
The result showed that Mr.. Roosevelt
and Col. Gorgas were right-the Canal
was completed ahead of time, endemic
disease was eliminated and the biggest
single business enterprise in history is
functioning without hitch, as the re-
cent passage of the Pacific fleet SO
clearly showed.
Great Work Yet Ahead.
Latin American countries were slow
to follow the example set at Panama
for two reasons-lack of money and
lack of trained sanftarians. AS a con-
sequence the Canal has been obliged to
maintain a strict quarantine at Balboa
and Cristobal against some adjacent
ports. greatly to the prejudice of bust
ness interests. Either yellow fever or
/ bubonio plague or both have continued
to exist at Cartagena. Barranquilla,
Puerto Colombia, Buenaventura, T1i.
nsco and Guayaquil and other mari
time centres In northern or tropical
South America, while malaria Is there
| and In the surrounding districts all the
time. This quarantine means that ships
from these ports must be delayed at the
Canal up to as long as a week in some
cases with the chance that passengers
miss connections and cargo suffers de-
lay. while the reputation given to those
ports and the country round them by
this fact has been a strong deterrent to
their development They are the gate
ways to the richest potential regions in
America in gold, platinum. silver, cop
per. oil. rubber and other resources, but
| men will not go there as freely as they
might but for this handicap, while dis
| ease contracted interferes with enter
prises which might otherwise be much
more successful. ..t,.
! The immense Importance of this mat
ter may be realized when we refiec,
| that the day Is at hand when northern
| South America, including the magnih,
cent regions of the upper Orinoco and
| Amazon, must be opened to civiliza'
ton; and unless this movement is &C
companied by proper sanitary measures
| anu utdln Will VII Z
scale comparable only TO what hap
pened when malaria and trypanosomi
fass took their deadly toll OF million,
| in central Africa when the whites
rushed in where angels might well have
feared to tread.
| 1t is well to make this matter cleal
to the business ayman. Endemic dis
ease Is terrible in any locality in pro
| portion to the existence of or arriva
| Of non-immunes.
A non-immune to a certain disease II
person who has never had that disease
| Surviving an attack of yellow fever. fol
example, confers immunity against fu
ture attacks. This is the case with somt
diseases. though not with all. but 1t 1;
especially the case with certain highly
| epidemic forms. II is true to certain
| ill-defned extent in the case of malaria
The writer, for example, has survived
| forty-six attacks OF malarial fever, anC
it may be that some of the earlier at
! lacks conferred a sort of partial i'm
munity against the later ones. When &
non-immune person arrives in a com
munity in which yellow fever exists
along with the conveying mosquito. tbs
/