Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1920-07-08


ment transport sailing either July IA or
16.
London. July 4.-Major-Gen. William c.
Gorgas. former surgeon-general of the
United States army, died at an early
hour this morning.
General Gorgae, who had been affec-
tionately called physician TO the world
by reason of the immense benefits his
labors conferred upon mankind was
southerner. His birthplace was Mobile.
Ala, State of which his maternal grand
father. Quayle, had been Governor. He
was born in 1854. the son of william Cor
gas, a West Point graduate. who fought
for the Canfederacy as a brigadiergen-
eral and after the war became president
of the University Of the South at Sewanee,
Tenn.
1t was at this institution that the great
sanitarian received his college education
before coming North in the los to study
medicine in this city at Bellevue Medical
College. Following his course in the hos
pital here he at once applied for a Doctors
commission in the army and was sent to
Fort Brown, Texas. as a lieutenant. Out
there Fate. possibly with purpose. visited
his system with the germs of yellow fever.
This early conflict with the disease ia
said to have awakened his interest in 1t,
and thus led TO the eventual practical
elimination by his efforts of this dreaded
malady from the list of tropical plaques.
CLEANED HAVANA OF FEVER
| It was during the Spanish War and the
years Immediately following it that Gorgas
| performed the work that first brought
! him general attention, revealing his re-
! markable talent as an executive sani-
/ tartan. He accompanied the army in the
| Santiago expedition and then was put in
charge of the yellow fever wards of the
! Las Animas hospital in Havana While
! serving as health officer of the city he
seized upon the contemporary discovery
| of the mosquito transmission of yellow
| fever and adapted to it his campaign that
effectively cleaned up" the Cuban capi-
| tai.
Thus he became the unquestioned choice
| of the government in 1905 when it became
necessary to make 'healthful the area sur
| rounding what is now the Panama canal.
The French canal builders were twice de-
feated by seemingly ineradicable tropic
disease. and to Gorgas is now given the
credit for removing from the isthmus the
twin ecourges of malaria and yellow
fever and making possible the engineer
ing achievements of General Cocktails
The fevers and agues which destroyed
the workers under de Lesseps disap-
peared before the careful scientific
methods efficiently and tactfully pu,
into force by the American expert Colone
Roosevelt said that he made Panama las
safe as a health resort" and in con.
nection with this successful proof thai
the tropics can be made a place where
white men may live and labor 1t is inter.
esting to recall these words written after
ward by Gorgas himself-they reveal :
dream OF his
Il dare to predict that after a laps.
of period, let us say equal to tina
which now separates the year 1919 from
that Of the Norman conquest of England
localities in the tropics will be the cente
Of as powerful and a cultured a whit,
, civilization as any that exist in the TEN
, perate zone"
{ MADE ISTHMUS HEALTHFUL
In the work of making the isthmu
healthful there were no bands playing O
flags flying fumigation and ash can
were prominent in their place. off tn
: beaten paths of the zone and at the head
G quarters of every little stream was place
e one Of those humble objects whose rattl
: ing has walked us of a morning-an as
e can. A lampwick protruded from a hol
e near the bottom and drop by drop the lar
II vacide, composed of crude carbolic aciC
: resin and caustc soda. would fall on tn
= surface Of the water and be carried ava
i to the destruction of the mosquito larvae
which had to rise to the surface t
y breathe These ash cans were called tn
n outposts of the sanitation army.
S Five years of the scientific care an
ith tbt,c ~
= low fever death of the isthmus from 500
to just nineteen. No wonder that Colon'
e Gorgas was embodied to prophesy tina
Vt some day "a case of yellow fever will b
regarded as a medical curiosity"
In 1913 Colonel Gorgas went to Sout
n Africa at the request of the British go,
'e eminent to investigate conditions in tn
Rand mines, where thousands of Kaftii
d were dying from epdemics of pneumoni,
J. In 1914, having served in Panama as a Co
e. onel and Assistant Surgeon General, h
l. was promoted to Surgeon General and III
III following March he was made Majc
l. General. In 1915, also, he became Pc
d manent Director of the Internation
Health Board of the Rockefeller Pounds
IN ton, and his last great work in the tropi'
he was accomplished under the auspices {
he that body. This was his campaign again
at yellow fever's last stronghold Guayaqu
in Ecuador. He returned from that tr
III last october after a complete success
REDUCED WAR MORTALITY RATE
ly In the recent war General Gorgas, {
cd the head of the Medical Corps, reduce
mt the rate of mortality for our army
IT, six -tenths OF ! per cent. This is a lowe
a rate than that of the Japanese arm
mt which had previously been cited as II
Sc model OF hygiene in all military histor
n. Incidentally, the General took issue VIII
the War Department in the movemel
for raising the rank given to distnguls'
ed medical men who enter the service
wartime from civil life. He was stronl
N lily in favor of according them position
in keeping with their high profession
ol- attachments.
re- Among the many honors conferred upc
I'm General Gorgas may be mentioned u
m gold medal of the American Museum
-ty Safety. the Mary Kingsley Medal fro
he the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicin
ICE and the Presidency of the American MED
iii. cal Association in 1908. He was a mer
ow Der OF several other medical organization
IN and United States delegate to the Iir
les Pan-American Medical Congress In ga
tiago. Chile, in 1905