page_title: Panama City
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Panama City / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: reviewofreviewsw30newy (find matches) Title: Review of reviews and world's work Year: 1890 (1890s) Authors: Subjects: Publisher: New York Review of Reviews Corp Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: ■i by Underwood &amp; Undern I New York. AN UNFINISHED CUT &gt;\ no: Panama CANAL. SOLVING THE HEALTH PROBLEM AT PANAMA. 53 Text Appearing After Image: A STREET IN THE OLD QUARTER OF THE TOWN OF PANAMA. this way the individual will be brought under ob-servation in the first day of his disease, placedunder the best possible conditions for recovery,and, most important from a sanitary point ofview, put in a screened ward, where mosquitoescannot bite him, become infected themselves,and, by biting other people, spread the diseaseto them. If the poor and ignorant have a horror of thehospitals, they will conceal their yellow-fevercases, and keep them at home, and no system ofinspection or severity in punishment for theseinfractions can enable the sanitary authoritiesto discover all the cases. I speak from ex-perience on this point. In the midst of the se-vere epidemic of yellow fever of 1900, in Havana,we found our scheme of having yellow-fevercases reported to the sanitary authorities failingbecause the people generally believed that theycould not get the caie or treatment at the hos-pitals that they could at home, and they wouldtake the r Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Panama City, also simply known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has an urban population of 880,691, with over 1.5 million in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of Panama. The city is the political and administrative center of the country, as well as a hub for banking and commerce.
  The city of Panama was founded on 15 August, 1519, by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila. The city was the starting point for expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. It was a stopover point on one of the most important trade routes in the American continent, leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, through which passed most of the gold and silver that Spain took from the Americas.
  On 28 January, 1671, the original city was destroyed by a fire when the privateer Henry Morgan sacked and set fire to it. The city was formally reestablished two years later on 21 January, 1673, on a peninsula located 8 km from the original settlement. The site of the previously devastated city is still in ruins, and is now a popular tourist attraction, and is regularly visited by school trips.
context_section_description: The city was founded on 15 August, 1519, by Pedro Arias de Ávila, also known as Pedrarias Dávila. Within a few years of its founding, the city became a launching point for the exploration and conquest of Peru and a transit point for gold and silver headed back to Spain through the Isthmus. In 1671 Henry Morgan with a band of 1400 men attacked and looted the city, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. The ruins of the old city still remain and are a popular tourist attraction known as Panamá Viejo (Old Panama). The city was rebuilt in 1673 in a new location approximately 5 miles (8 km) southwest of the original city. This location is now known as the Casco Viejo (Old Quarter) of the city. Panama City is the fourth earliest-founded of the modern-day capital cities in the Americas.
  One year before the start of the California Gold Rush, the Panama Railroad Company was formed, but the railroad did not begin full operation until 1855. Between 1848 and 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States, about 375,000 persons crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 in the opposite direction. This traffic greatly increased the prosperity of the city during that period.
  The construction of the Panama Canal was of great benefit to the infrastructure and economy. Of particular note are the improvements in health and sanitation brought about by the American presence in the Canal Zone.  Dr. William Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer for the canal construction, had a particularly large impact. He hypothesized that diseases were spread by the abundance of mosquitos native to the area, and ordered the fumigation of homes and the cleansing of water. This led to yellow fever being eradicated by November 1905, as well malaria rates falling dramatically. However, most of the laborers for the construction of the canal were brought in from the Caribbean, which created unprecedented racial and social tensions in the city.
  During World War II, construction of military bases and the presence of larger numbers of U.S. military and civilian personnel brought about unprecedented levels of prosperity to the city. Panamanians had limited access, or no access at all, to many areas in the Canal Zone neighboring the Panama city metropolitan area. Some of these areas were military bases accessible only to United States personnel. Some tensions arose between the people of Panama and the U.S. citizens living in the Panama Canal Zone. This erupted in the 9 January 1964 events, known as Martyrs' Day.
  In the late 1970s through the 1980s the city of Panama became an international banking center, bringing a lot of undesirable attention as an international money-laundering locale. In 1989 after nearly a year of tension between the United States and Panama, President George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to depose General Manuel Noriega, the country's de facto dictator. As a result, a portion of the El Chorrillo neighborhood, which consisted mostly of old wood-framed buildings dating back to the 1900s (though still a large slum area), was destroyed by fire.  In 1999, the United States officially transferred control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, which remains in control today.
  The city of Panama is still a banking center, although with very visible controls in the flow of cash. Shipping is handled through port facilities in the area of Balboa operated by the Hutchison Whampoa Company of Hong Kong and through several ports on the Caribbean side of the isthmus. Balboa, which is located within the greater Panama metropolitan area, was formerly part of the Panama Canal Zone, and the administration of the former Panama Canal Zone was headquartered there.
caption: The Old Quarter of Panama City in the 19th century
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