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The Panama Canal was a monumental achievement in engineering, disease control, and
United States empire building. The canal is historically significant because its location allowed
the United States to gain control over land, which was the first step towards establishing a United
States imperial presence in Central America.1 For many U.S. doctors and politicians the ability to
create a safe environment in the Canal Zone was considered an imperative for the construction’s
realization. Costing almost $375,000,000 by its completion, the Panama Canal was conceivably
the largest American engineering project in the early twentieth century.2 However, Panama posed
a considerable problem for the Americans in charge of constructing the canal. Panama is the
southernmost area of Central America. The latter has a tropical climate that consists of hot and
humid weather. To Europeans and Americans the tropics were more than a geographic region.
They tropics were understood as a diseased filled land and government medical physicians were
charged with ensuring that workers on the Isthmus were healthy and productive.
Disease control during the creation of the Panama Canal, at the beginning of the
twentieth century, emphasized United States doctors as historical agents and the tribulations
these men faced over conquering disease. William Gorgas, the medical physician and the Chief
Sanitary Officer assigned the task of ensuring the health of the Isthmian Canal Commission
workers, used his experience in Cuba during the Spanish-American War as a template to
determine what factors were important for disease control. This essay argues that American
physicians, like Gorgas, wanted to control death in the Panama Canal Zone to strengthen the role
of the United States as a world power in the early twentieth century. American physicians
1 Stephen Frenkel, “Geography, Empire, and Environmental Determinism”, Geographical Review, vol 82, 2 (April, 1992), 5.2 David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870- 1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 610.
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worked in tandem with bureaucratic efforts to make Panama disease controlled under a strict
U.S. definition of health. Thus, the construction of the canal was a history of the challenges of
maintaining health in a tropical environment, which historically had been perceived as the
antagonist in European colonial narratives. Overcoming the difficulties the landscape posed
ultimately gave credence to the growing superiority of the United States in the twentieth century.
The United States, not the European Empires, conquered areas that European empires could not
with the aid of new technologies and advances in disease prevention, and treatment. This essay
will examine this development in four sections: the history of the tropical landscape, the idea of
biopower, the role of statistics for legitimizing progress, and the use of medicine as a tool for the
cultivation of U.S. nationalism.
Scholarship on the Panama Canal is split between those who focus on the role of
technology and those who see health and disease control as manifestations of power. The former
is reflected in historian Michael Adas’ Dominance by Design (2006).3 His work emphasises the
role of engineers in advancing United States imperialism. For Adas, this form of imperialism was
rooted in engineering feats and proved to be a defining aspect of the Panama Canal construction
effort, as well as a means of legitimizing American intervention in places they saw as
technologically inferior.4 Technology and engineering became focal points in United States
identity at this time.
The second group is represented by scholarship such as historian Julie Greene’s The
Canal Builders. Her work is a social history that focuses on the laborers who built the canals,
their families, and the regulations established to control and maintain order under a certain
3 Michael Adas, Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission. (Cambridge: Belknap, 2006).4 Ibid., 150.
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paradigm. Greene’s focus on the lives of the workers illustrates that health and regulations were
highly racialized.5 Also in this category, historian Warwick Anderson looks at American
imperialism through a medical lens. Anderson’s Colonial Pathologies (2006) emphasizes
militarized medicine, health care, and hygiene in the United States occupation of the
Philippines.6 Anderson illustrates that the United States government transformed the physician's
role in 1905 by re-training them as sanitary inspectors. These inspectors then spread themselves
across the Philippines to scrutinize the habitats and bodies of Filipinos.7 This essay adds to the
scholarship on the Panama Canal, American imperialism, and medicine by focusing specifically
on the role of American doctors in Panama and how medicine was used to legitimize American
authority.
The history of the Panama Canal starts with the Spanish–American War of 1898, which
was fought on a number of fronts including Cuba and Philippines. The Uited States, after the
American Civil War (1861-1865) and the completion of Manifest Destiny to California by 1860,
emerged as the dominant power in the Americas. Comparatively, the Spanish Empire was in a
state of terminal decline. By the 1880s the majority of Spain’s colonies had obtained
independence with the exceptions of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Furthermore, the
revolutions that plagued Cuba and the Philippines in the late 1890s showed that Spain’s empire
was at an end. The outcomes of the Spanish-American War, specifically in Cuba and the
Philippines, illustrated the advancing role sanitation played in the prevention of disease.
According to historian Mariola Espinosa, the United States’ successful intervention in
Cuba was driven by the threat of the yellow fever in the southernmost American states, such as
5 Julie Greene, The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal. (London: Penguin, 2009).6 Warwick Anderson, Colonial Pathologies, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006). 7 Ibid., 69.
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Florida, and by the sanitary measures imposed on Cuba, which were designed to keep the United
States landscape free from epidemics.8 Medical work in the Philippines, according to Warwick
Anderson, demonstrated the importance of sanitary measures for preventing the spread of deadly
diseases to protect United States soldiers.9 Many United States citizens believed involvement in
Cuba depicted the United States as a bearer of freedom and although controversial, their
relationship with the Philippines was described as benevolent assimilation. Benevolent
assimilation was a colonial movement pushed forward by President William McKinley in 1898.
McKinley wanted the United States empire to function as a protector against European empires.
He believed that under United States control, the personal rights of natives would be well
respected and their standard of living would be better. However, Anderson explains that
benevolent assimilation was a civilizing mission that gave the illusion of respecting the personal
lives of natives and instead “disempowered local communities” by imposing Euro-American
notions of modernity into the native lifestyle.10 Both Cuba and the Philippines served as a symbol
to establish the United States as an emerging global force and, in the American imagination, as a
virtuous beacon of liberty. Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” provided poetic
license for the United States to join the illustrious club of Empires. Kipling called on the
American government to send “[their] best breed” on a mission to civilize the tropics.11
8 Mariola Espinosa, Epidemic Invasions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 3. Cities and towns in the southern United States that engaged in commercial trade with Cuba suffered yellow fever outbreaks during the second half of the nineteenth century. By controlling yellow fever in Cuba, the United States protected the health of cities and towns in the southern United States.9 Anderson, Colonial Pathologies, 16.10 Ibid., 182-183.11 Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”, Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling (accessed April 2, 2015).
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Ultimately, Kipling’s poem complemented expansionists’ view but angered anti-
expansionists. The Anti-Imperial League was considered the anti-war mouthpiece of the
Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War in the political discourse of the United
States. The majority of the congressional opponents of a direct form of imperialism were from
the southern states and established in the Democratic Party. According to historian Tennant
McWilliams, fifteen of the twenty-five votes against the Treaty of Paris were cast by Southern
Senators.12 McWilliams argues that the anti-imperialist bloc would have won this vote if other
Southern Democrats had not had complications with Nebraskan politician and anti-imperialist
William Jennings Bryan’s strategy of turning imperialism into a campaign issue.13 However,
members of the League differed in their reasons for being against imperialism. The lack of a
cohesive front against expansionism failed to prevent William McKinley to serve another term.
Anti-Imperialist League members were fundamentally supportive of the American system and
thus never radically criticized American foreign policy. The members however, were united with
a sense of righteousness in their cause concerning American liberalism. To the League,
imperialism betrayed the “spirit of 1776”, a phrase coined by United States statesman Carl
Schurz in reference to the American Revolutionary War.14
From Eden to the Apocalypse
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Panama was defined by the United States
and Europeans as a tropical landscape that was understood in direct opposition to the temperate
12 Tennant S. McWilliams, The New South Faces the World: Foreign Affairs and the Southern Sense of Self, 1877–1950 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 60. Established in 1898, the treaty resulted in Spain surrendering its control of Cuba and provided the United States with its colonies in the Spanish West Indies, Guam, and the Philippines.13 McWilliams, The New South Faces the World, 60.14 Carl Schurz, The Policy of Imperialism, Address delivered at the Anti-Imperialist Conference in Chicago, October 17, 1899 (Chicago: American Anti-Imperialist League, 1899), introduction i.
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environments of North America and Europe. Historian David Arnold argues that perceiving
landscapes as simply physical space is short-sighted. Instead, landscapes need to be understood
as a concept.15 The tropics, located in the middle global latitudes between the tropics of Cancer
and Capricorn, were defined by Westerners as a “culturally alien” landscape.16 As a concept, the
tropics existed in juxtaposition to “the normality of the temperate lands” and the environment
was transformed by Western experience of moving into a foreign land.17 The tropics were
depicted by Westerners as both Edenic and antagonistic. From the fifteenth century onwards the
tropics were described in biblical terms.18 In the Western imagination the tropics expressed an
“exotic otherness” that was an escape from the oppressive and humanized environment of the
Western world.19 To Western explorers the landscape was described as a separate world, pristine,
untouched, as had been the Garden of Eden in Genesis. From this perspective, the Edenic
landscape was a paradise where individuals lived harmoniously with their environment.20
The Western dream of a biblical utopia was transformed into an apocalyptic setting when
the tropics obtained a notorious reputation for high death rates. Disease played a pivotal role in
transforming the tropics from Eden into the apocalypse. This negative narrative became the
conservative Western view when travelers and workers stayed in the environment for long
periods of time and relied on miasmatic theories to explain high death rates.21 According to
miasmatic principles, “the warm and moist climate was thought to be a breeding ground for
15 David Arnold, The Problem of Nature (Massachussetts: Blackwell Publishers Blackwell Publishers: MA, 2006), 142.16 Ibid. The term “westerners” refers to Europeans and North Americans; the term “western” refers to Europe and North America.17 Ibid., 143.18 This is the term historian David Arnold used to describe the Eden-like landscape of the tropics..19 David Arnold, The Problem of Nature, 149.20 Ibid.21 Miasma theory is the belief that diseases were airborne. Remedies for Black Death are an example of miasma theory in action since individuals thought incense burning would cover the "bad air".
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disease.”22 During the 1880s, Panama epitomized the negativities of the tropics with death rates
around 60 per 1,000 PanamaniansPanamians, a high casualty rate when compared to death rate in
the United States .23 The tropics began to consume the Western imagination as an environment
of death and disease. This proved vital since Westerners understood environments to influence
and shape human cultures.24
The Western worldview imagined landscapes as a duality between the civilized and the
barbaric. Westerners viewed tropical culture as a savage space where nature dictated culture. As
such, depictions of the tropics drew upon complex themes such as climate, race, and disease.
According to Arnold, foreign landscapes were imbued with as much significance as the people
that resided within it.25 From this perspective, landscapes were given great moral significance as
well. For instance, the tropical hot climate, and the high levels of precipitation allowed the
production of crops with relative ease, and consequently Westerners perceived the native
inhabitants as lazy since the abundance of food hindered the need to work hard and strive for
wealth.26 For Euro-Americans the environment was directly linked with developing civilization,
and the tropical setting subdued the individual need to strive for success.
The tropics were both a geographic location and a concept developed by the Westerners
whereby they understood the tropics as a geographical “other” which was both exotic and
dangerous. An idea with a cultural construction of an exotic and dangerous “other” of Western
invention. More importantly, Americans saw a challenge – a landscape that could be reshaped to
22 Stephen Frenkel, “Jungle Stories: North American Representations of Tropical Panama”, Geographical Review,vol. 86, no.3, 1996, 325.23 Ibid., 320.24 Arnold, The Problem of Nature, 142.25 Ibid., 141.26 Ibid., 159.
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serve their needs and desires. Resting with the notion that man must dominate nature, the
Americans saw potential in Panama since it “continually intersected with [their] development” in
Central America.27 Furthermore, Panama was a space in which many private American investors
financed projects “ranging from railroads to plantations”.28 With much economic potential, it
became imperative for the United States to remodel Panama’s image to garner support from the
American public.
Biopower
Medicine played a prominent role in the creation of the Panama Canal. For the project to
be successful in a landscape adverse to European settlement, medical professionals needed to
develop and implement strict health regulations. The medical aspect of the Panama Canal offers
a compelling example of the concept of biopower in a colonial setting. Philosopher and social
theorist Michel Foucault, argued that biopower essentially relies on the notion that the modern
interest of individuals in power is the securing and extending of life.29 Biopower first takes shape
in the form of disciplining the human body through institutions. Through the disciplining of
health, the ICC endeavoured to manage life in an effort to increase the effectiveness of a chosen
population.30 The ICC established regulations to monitor space and focused its attention on
labourers’ spaces of work and more importantly, the spaces for the sick. Essentially, focusing on
space became a fundamental way for the ICC to control the Canal Zone’s productivity.
Furthermore, Foucault also describes biopower as the regulation of population.31 More
specifically, this statement suggests that institutional power maintains a continuous
27 Frenkel, “Jungle Stories: North American Representations of Tropical Panama”, 321.28 Ibid.29 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 (New York: Pantheon, 1978), 143.30 Ibid., 140.31 Ibid., 144- 145.
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reinforcement of the working population.32
Bio-power emphasises control and according to historian Alexandra Stern, the Canal
Zone functioned “as a laboratory of American colonialism.”33 Canal labourers saw their work
and leisure monitored, and racial demarcations were tightly scripted and policed.34 The Canal
Zone was under rigorous “militaristic and moralistic surveillance”, which tracked the movement
of all humans, insects and rodents.35 Thus statistics played a vital role for the ICC’s control of the
Canal Zone; these were used to understand, and ultimately control, the population of the Canal
Zone through a detailed demography.
Controlling Health on the Isthmus
William Gorgas used his experience in Cuba to solve the malaria epidemic in the Panama
Canal Zone. Gorgas cleaned the privies and streets of Cuba for three years without any positive
results in his fight against yellow fever and malaria.36 The methods Gorgas applied proved
useless; he lamented that at the end of his third year in Cuba, disease spread more than when he
initially arrived.37 The turning point for Gorgas was when he realized mosquitoes carried the
disease.38 In his crusade against malaria and yellow fever, Gorgas focused on managing Cuban
health by eliminating water barrels and cisterns, the breeding ground for mosquitos in human
settlements.39 Therefore maintenance of streets and privies, was a matter of social standards for
32 Ibid., 143.33 Alexandra Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults & Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 32.34 Ibid.35 Ibid.36 William Gorgas, “January 1906 Report,” in Report of the Department of Health of the Isthmian Canal Commission. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907): 3-4. http://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:6242504$7i (accessed April 12, 2015)37 Ibid.38 Ibid.,4.39 Ibid.
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cleanliness as well as direct sanitation requirements to aid in the prevention of disease. As such,
this section will investigate the efforts of physicians to make Panama disease controlled under
their definitions of health by examining the reports formed for the ICC.
Social historian Nancy Tomes states that germ theory began to be adopted by American
doctors during the late nineteenth century.40 Lead by these prominent doctors, germ theory
successfully infiltrated the American imagination and strengthened a culture of cleanliness in the
United States.41 In this social atmosphere individuals were required to be vigilant about disease
and infections, and thoroughly clean in all aspects of life. Germ theory fed into the momentous
changes in personal and domestic hygiene that had begun with the rise of sanitary science in the
1880s, and justified precautions of ventilation, disinfection and cleanliness associated with
sanitary science.42 By controlling the health of Panama in a similar vein to Cuba, the ICC wanted
Gorgas to establish the Canal Zone as a viable space for work productivity. Gorgas made it clear
to the ICC that his methods in Cuba were the best solution to combat yellow fever cautiously,
also stating that perfection was unattainable.43 Therefore, Gorgas’ goal was not the total
eradication of disease but managing the health of the workers.
The measures implemented by Gorgas aimed to destroy all mosquito breeding grounds.
Subsoil tiling, a method to breakdown soil easily, was Gorgas’ preferred method for drainage as
it “does away entirely with mosquito-breeding.”44 Furthermore, to save capital, Gorgas had all
superficial ditches filled with concrete to ensure that small pools where mosquitoes breed could
40 Nancy Tomes, Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 3.41 Ibid., 46-47.42Tomes, Gospel of Germs, 56-67.43 William Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race” The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol LII, 25 (June, 1909), 1967.44 Ibid.
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not resurface.45 The mosquito ecosystem was further destroyed with the use of copper sulphate
and petroleum as a means to kill the algae that mosquitos eat in their larval stage.46 Unconvinced
that this means of destruction was sufficient, Gorgas also created defence systems in homes by
building galleries and doors with screens.47 The screen’s state required constant surveillance to
prevent breaches; such surveillance proved imperative for the project to be successful. The Canal
Zone was divided into seventeen districts with a chief inspector responsible for ensuring the
health of the employees.48 For instance, the chief inspector needed to ensure that all employees
took a daily dose of quinine as a prophylactic.49 Quinine is a medication that strengthens the
body against malaria. The use of quinine as a prophylactic exemplifies the Foucauldian nature of
Gorgas’ project: biopower requires the human body to be disciplined against disease.
Furthermore, the chief inspectors were required to write reports on the conditions and rates of
yellow fever and malarial patients to control any outbreaks. Thus the Canal Zone was heavily
monitored and statistics played a prominent role in defining health and charting progress.
This section will investigate the efforts of physicians to make Panama disease controlled under
their definitions of health by examining the reports formed for the ICC. William Gorgas and his
colleagues in Panama defined good health as a low death toll and high return rate of labourers to
work on the Canal.50 Defining health through statistics proved effective for the ICC since these
statistics provided a roadmap for progress in the Canal Zone. The ICC awarded Gorgas and
sanitary inspectors the powers to control all aspects of health. Ultimately, these efforts proved a
45 Ibid.46 William Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race”, 1967.47 Ibid., 1968.48 Ibid.49 William Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race”, 1968.50 Gorgas, “January 1906 Report,” 4-5.
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direct affirmation of Foucauldian biopower in the Canal Zone since health became a tool to
increase the Zone’s productivity. In regards to the maintenance of health, the early years of the
canal’s construction were a period of time where inhibitory methods were used to control
disease. From 1906 onwards Gorgas and his physician colleagues demonstrated a blending of
bureaucratic priorities and control measures.
The ICC produced regular reports from each department in the Canal Zone as a way to
maintain evidence for reports to Congress which were necessary for continued funding. The
Commission required that during each month of construction, the Chief Sanitary Officer submit a
report detailing the state of health on the Isthmus. All reports contained statistics on death rates,
sick rates, and the expenditures for the Sanitary Department.51 In January 1906, when the canal
had already been under United States control for two years, William Gorgas submitted the
Report of the Department of Health of the Isthmian Canal Commission.52 In his report, he began
by describing the exceptional health conditions to the Governor of the Canal Zone.53 Gorgas used
disease rates as evidence that the Canal Zone was in an overall state of good health and attributed
this progress to the new sanitary.54
According to Gorgas the exceptional conditions in Panama were demonstrated by the fact
that in the month of January, U.S. physicians announced that they did not need to deal with
quarantine diseases such as yellow fever, plague and smallpox anymore.55 This was of
monumental importance for Gorgas and the ICC since well-known contagious diseases with high
mortality percentages were the object of greatest concern and interest to the officials in charge of
51 William Gorgas, “January 1906 Report, 3.52 Ibid.53 Ibid.54 William Gorgas, “January 1906 Report, 3.55 Ibid., 4.
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constructing the canal, a fact made apparent in the January chart in the 1906 record.
Compartmentalized by area, employment, and cases related to deaths, the chart tabulated yellow
fever cases and deaths from July 1st 1904 to January 31st 1906.56 While comparing the
American to the French effort as a means by which to measure success was extremely common
on the United States’ part throughout the construction of the canal, statistics proved a more
dependable tool over time. The ICC relied on statistics to measure and control productivity.
Gorgas’ reports to the ICC were important evidence of the number of men rendered inactive due
to illness. The statistic collection inserted biopower in the Canal Zone by controlling life through
a detailed understanding of disease. Gorgas believed that the daily sick rate accurately depicted
the Commission's loss from sickness; his emphasis on daily sick rates reflects the preoccupation
with his ICC superiors.57 As a result, the sick rates provided an important way for physicians to
report the success of sanitation efforts in the Canal Zone. The sick rate calculated for January
1906 was 22 per 1,000 workers and Gorgas assured the ICC that this number mirrored the sick
rate in the United States.58 The comparison to the United States offered both reassurance and
proof that despite the Panamanian landscape being notorious as an infectious, dangerous setting
for the white race, the advanced sanitation efforts transformed Panama. The metamorphosis was
complete; the Panama Canal area became as safe as any workplace in the United States.
Race was consistently used as a method to separate and classify diseases during the
construction, and the focus on race in Gorgas’ reports provides yet another interesting lens
through which to examine medical progress during the project. For instance, in January of 1906
pneumonia proved to be the most dangerous disease with approximately 26 out of 50 cases
56 Ibid., 5.57 Gorgas, “January 1906 Report”, 3.58 Ibid.
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resulting in death.59 Gorgas noted that only one case out of the 26 cases involved a white
American male, while the rest were dark skinned men.60 Gorgas’ report does not explain the
reason why white American males were nearly impervious to pneumonia. However, the use of
racial categories in medical reports supports American geographer Stephen Frenkel’s argument
that environmental determinism shaped the working conditions during construction of the
canal.61
Environmental determinism entails that climatic conditions had a profound influence on
human development.62 An environmental deterministic worldview gave weight to pseudo-
scientific beliefs, justifying decisions to assign specific types of work by race. The hot tropical
climate made physical labour an arduous endeavour. Furthermore, environmental determinism
enforced the notion that the white American population was “climactically out of their element”
since they came from a temperate zone.63 White Euro-Americans were not the optimal choice of
labourers for physically demanding work in Panama. Comparatively, Afro-Caribbeans were
preferred since their dark complexion allowed them to handle the climate.64 This racialized
understanding of the relationship between biology and climate manifested itself in the work and
living space of employees. Frenkel contends that white Americans were assigned skilled jobs and
better living conditions than Afro-Caribbean or West Indian labourers.65 Dark skinned races were
considered less vulnerable since their acclimatization to the environment meant they did not
59 Ibid.60 Gorgas, “January 1906 Report”, 3.61 Frenkel, “Geography, Empire and Environmental Determinism”, 3.62 Ibid.63 Ibid., 8.64 Frenkel, “Geography, Empire and Environmental Determinism”, 3.65 Ibid., 8.
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require the special quarters considered vital to the health of white employees.66 According to
Frenkel, significant economic downturn in the Caribbean sugar industry made Caribbean
workers available to work in large numbers.67 In this light the health of unskilled labourers was
considered to be of little consequence to Gorgas and the ICC since they were easily replaceable.
Health, Progress and American Nationalism
Statistics proved the triumph of American sanitation efforts in the Canal Zone and led to
the transformation of the image of the United States on a domestic and international scale. In
March 1908 the New York Tribune published an article titled “Health at Panama” detailing the
success of Gorgas’ initiatives in Panama The article began with the news that yellow fever had
not been reported on the isthmus for twenty two months and that there was a fifty percent
reduction of malaria68 Malaria had previously been a problem on the isthmus since treatments for
it were not as prioritized as yellow fever treatments. However, once efforts were focused on
malaria, cases dropped significantly. For instance, in 1907 there existed 1,813 cases of malaria in
a working population of 43,390 men.69 However, by 1908 only 642 individuals from 43,390 had
contracted malaria.70 The article’s emphasis on the Americans’ ever-increasing control over
health was meant to evoke sentiments of nationalism and superiority. This is most evident with
66 Ibid.67 Frenkel, “Geography, Empire and Environmental Determinism”, 5.68 “Health at Panama”, New York Tribune, March 15 1908, 15. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1908-03-15/ed-1/seq-8/#date1=1907&index=1&rows=20&words=HEALTH+PANAMA&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=New+York&date2=1908&proxtext=health+at+panama&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 (accessed April 20, 2015)69 Gorgas, “January 1908 Report.” 3.70 Ibid.
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the article’s references to the early nineteenth century German naturalist Alexander von
Humboldt and the mid-nineteenth century English historian James Froude. Von Humboldt
condemned Panama as forever being “ravished by yellow fever and malaria” while Froude
contended that Panama contained the largest absorption of “moral and physical abomination”
because of disease.71 The two reflected the nineteenth century worldview that the tropics could
not be Edenic because of the disease that dominated the landscape. This view makes the article’s
use of von Humboldt and Froude interesting since its main focus was on the success of the
sanitation efforts. The two men believed the tropical world would remain an illusionary Eden,
which looked appealing but was detrimental to one’s health. Evidently the sanitation efforts by
Gorgas proved this worldview to be a fallacy. However, mentioning von Humboldt and Froude
served a larger function for comparative reasons. The sanitation efforts were vital in recasting
America as a new world power. The sanitation victory was understood as proof of American
superiority by American citizens and their government. The two men reflected the past while
Gorgas symbolized American efficiency. The article notes that only under an American
administration could “the knowledge and resources of modern science [be] applied to the
hygienic redemption of the Isthmus.”72 For the average reader, the ability of Americans to
control disease was to be understood as equally impressive and heroic as the building of the
canal itself. Both feats functioned as testimonies of American power and skill and participated in
furthering the American national sentiment.
Medical developments used as evidence of American superiority were not limited to
newspapers. In 1909, Gorgas published an article titled “Conquest of the Tropics for the White
71 Ibid.72 Gorgas, “January 1908 Report.” 3.
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Race” in The Journal of the American Medical Association and emphasised American greatness
in the field for the scientific community.73 Previously monopolized by Europeans, the field of
tropical medicine was becoming dominated by the United States.74 Gorgas developed a method
that targeted mosquitos by draining the land and oiling breeding grounds to make the landscape
habitable for the white race. He further asserted that the difference between the Americans and
other white races in the tropics was their success in controlling disease.75
In his article, written as a triumphal narrative, Gorgas depicted American physicians as
independent from, and superior to their European counterparts. He then continues by elaborating
the potential benefits empires can reap from this type of control in the tropics. Gorgas argued
that the abundant resources and “the returns for labor” had greater economic potential in the
tropics than in the temperate zone.76 He echoes Social Darwinist Benjamin Kidd in stating that
dominating the tropics was the next stage in empire building. In his Control of the Tropics
(1898), Kidd argued that the world rivalry and struggle for trade in the tropics would “be the
permanent underlying fact in the foreign relations of the Western nations in the 20th century.”77
The tropics now had the potential to be transformed into centers of power for the white race; on
an economical level the United States now had an advantage over their European counterparts
since the Panama Canal gave Americans control of tropical trade ports.78 Gorgas believed the
American effort would be looked at “as the earliest demonstration that the white man could
flourish in the tropics.”79 Gorgas envisioned his methods as a template for future settlements in
73Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race”, 1969.74 Espinosa, Epidemic Invasions, 119. 75 Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race”, 1969.76 Ibid.77 Benjamin Kidd, Control of the Tropics (London: Macmillan, 1898), 46.78 Gorgas, “Conquest of the Tropics for the White Race”, 1969.79 Ibid.
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the tropics by white Euro-Americans, which legitimized American authority in the field of
tropical medicine.80
The work done by American physicians to control disease in Panama became a crucial
characteristic of American perceptions of their superiority. The medical advances implemented
by Gorgas aided in developing sentiments shared by the general public and medical associations
that the United States was the most powerful successor to dwindling European empires. This
superiority was demonstrated through the eradication of mosquitoes and the limiting of disease
in an environment that was conceived of as an apocalyptic wasteland disguised as Eden. Gorgas
transformed this landscape into a reliable and orderly setting, echoing Foucauldian discipline,
and is symbolically similar to Prometheus. Like the Titan who brought fire to mankind, Gorgas
designed the template for Euro-Americans to thrive in the tropics.
80 Ibid.
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