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Malaria And The Panama Canal

DeCelle-Austin 1
Mary-Ann DeCelle-Austin
Professor:   D. Alvarez
IS 305
December 9, 2006
Malaria, Yellow Fever and the Panama Canal
"Panama was a crossroads of global trade, the keystone of the great Spanish Empire, a century before the first white settlers struggled ashore at Massachusetts Bay (La Feber 3).   In the 1500's, many explores came to the Isthmus looking for fame and fortune but found neither.   "Spanish explorer Rodrigo de Bastidas first landed in the are during the spring of 1501, wandered through a hundred-mile zone desperately searching for treasure, and retuned empty-handed to his ship" (La Feber 3).   If the explores left alive, they were lucky.   "Then one by one they began to die, of what they did not know" (La Feber 3).   They were unaware that the insect that was biting them could cause fever, disease and eventually death.   "The Spaniards greatly feared the many poisonous snakes which infest the country's jungles, but their killer was doubtless the tiny mosquito that carried yellow fever and malaria" (La Feber 3).   "In 1510, Balboa hurriedly traveled to Panama as a stowaway to escape creditors" (la Feber3).   "He became one of the nearly 800 Spaniards who settled on the Isthmus" (La Feber3).   He was one of the lucky ones; he lived, did not die and found fame and fortune.   The death toll of his time was great.   Only a few of the 800 Spaniards who arrived with Balboa lived.   "Soon only sixty Spaniards remained" (Le Feber 3).   By
1879, the French began the construction of the Panama Canal.   By this time, in
                                                                                                                DeCelle-Austin 2
France, the Canal Zone was renamed, "the white man's graveyard".   "Between 50 and 75 percent of French officials who came to work in Panama died from disease, which explains why in France, Panama was given the unflattering moniker of the "white man's graveyard" (Harding 23).   The French soon discovered that...