CHAPTER XII. Yellow-Fever Work At the Isthmus

YELLOW-FEVER WORK AT THE ISTHMUS

At the same time that yellow-fever work was commenced, an attack was also made upon malaria. Mr. Joseph L. Le Prince, who was in charge of similar work in Havana, was placed in charge of this work.

The anti-malarial work in the towns of Colon and Panama was exactly similar to that in the city of Havana. But the country along the line of the Canal between the two termini, Colon and Panama, was entirely different, and the problem was much more extensive than it had been in Havana.

The anopheles, the malarial mosquito, is peculiarly a country mosquito. In general, he likes clear, fresh water in which grass and algæ are plentiful, such as is found along the banks of the small mountain streams of Panama, or the fresh water ponds and pools. The grass and algæ give protection to the larvæ from the fish. Wherever the small fish can easily gain access, there mosquitoes cannot breed.

For the purpose of looking after malaria along this fifty miles of country district, the region was divided into twenty-four sanitary districts, known as Panama, La Boca, Ancon, Corozal, Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, Paraiso, Culebra, Empire, Las Cascadas, Bohio, Matachin, Gorgona, Juan Grande, San Pablo, Tabernilla, Frijoles, Largarto, Lion Hill, Gatun, Mount Hope, Colon, Nombre de Dios and Toro Point. Some years after, when the railroad was being relocated, we had an additional sanitary district, embracing the town of Lirio and a working force in that neighborhood for several miles up and down the road. Later, a quarry was established at the old city of Porto Bello, for the purpose of getting stone for the Gatun locks, and here we had another sanitary district.

Porto Bello is about twenty miles north of Colon, on the Caribbean Sea, and in our time was accessible to Canal employees only by water. It was the northern terminus of the old royal highway, built by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, and a good road at that time. This road had become entirely overgrown and was impassable even to a man on foot. It was originally well paved and well graded. I spent a great deal of time in trying to cross the Isthmus on this road, and succeeded in getting as far north from Panama as San Juan, a town of about one thousand inhabitants, on the Pequini River, and on the royal road about half-way across the Isthmus. There had been some travel between this town and Panama which had kept the royal highway sufficiently open to be traversed by pack animals. The Alcalde, a man of about seventy years of age, told me that no one in his memory had crossed on the road from San Juan to Porto Bello.

Porto Bello has a beautiful landlocked harbor, decidedly the best for hundreds of miles up and down the Caribbean coast. This coast is not subject to hurricanes and severe storms of that kind, but during the winter months the north wind, locally known as a “norther,” blows sharply for several days at a time, and makes it very uncomfortable for vessels lying in the open roadsteads which characterize all the other harbors. Two or three times every winter all the vessels lying at the docks in the harbor of Colon have to get up steam and go to sea on account of the severity of these northers. The harbor of Porto Bello is entirely protected from these northers by a mountain which runs out into the sea. Behind this mountain is a spacious and deep harbor.

About the beginning of the seventeenth century Porto Bello enjoyed one of the largest export trades in the then commercial world, though it was never a very populous town in its halcyon days, probably not having more than fourteen or fifteen thousand inhabitants, and this only during the period when the great fair was going on. As soon as the fair was over, the population dropped to a couple of thousands.

Professor William R. Shepherd, of Columbia University, estimates that the bullion shipped from Porto Bello amounted to about forty-two million dollars ($42,000,000) per year. If we take into account the value of gold then as compared with the present time, we can see that the export commerce of Porto Bello during the sixteenth century and early seventeenth was very little under two hundred million dollars ($200,000,000) per year.

Porto Bello had such a reputation for bad health that merchants, shipmasters, sailors and everybody got away as soon as possible after the fair was over. Indeed, I have seen it stated that it was the health conditions that limited the length of the fair; that the shipmasters would stay as long as they had crew enough to work their ships. When sickness had reduced the crew to the minimum which was able to work the ship, the shipmaster sailed away and thus broke up the fair.

Porto Bello was established by royal decree when the Spaniards abandoned Nombre de Dios, a town on the Caribbean coast about twenty miles east of Porto Bello. Porto Bello was strongly fortified by the Spaniards. Four different large and extensive stone forts were erected at various points about the harbor. These masonry structures were considered very strong for their day, and were well armed and well manned. One of the largest was built well up the side of the mountain which formed the protection for the harbor on the north, and where we afterwards established our quarry, above referred to.

Drake in his last expedition attempted to capture Porto Bello. He was repulsed in his attempt to storm the forts, but succeeded in capturing the Spanish fleet in the harbor. He died in the harbor of Porto Bello a few days after the fight, January 28, 1596. His followers placed his body in the flagship of the Spanish fleet, took the ship to the mouth of the harbor and there scuttled her. The island at the mouth of the harbor is still known locally as Drake’s Island. I cannot imagine a more appropriate burial place for Drake than this spot, nor a more fitting tomb than the Spanish flagship. For this was the scene of some of his greatest triumphs over the Spaniards.

Morgan, about seventy years later, succeeded in storming the forts and capturing the town, and Admiral Vernon again captured it in 1730.

In its prosperous days Porto Bello was every fall the scene of the great fair. This was one of the great fairs of the world. The merchants from Spain and Europe, Cuba and Santo Domingo brought their goods to Porto Bello, and at the same time the Spanish treasure fleet collected here for the purpose of starting on its trip to Spain. The merchants from Peru and all the western coast of South America, the western coast of Mexico and the Philippine Islands collected here for the purpose of purchasing from and exchanging with their confrères from the east. All the bullion, gold, silver and precious stones which had been collected at Panama during the year from these same places was now brought on pack mules across the Isthmus on the royal highway, and placed aboard the treasure fleet. The royal highway was not much used at other times; the ordinary route of travel across the Isthmus was north from Panama to Cruces on the Chagres River, and from the mouth of the river by sea to Porto Bello. But this thirty miles of sea trip exposed the traveler to possible capture by the buccaneers who infested these waters. The ordinary merchant, in ordinary times, was willing to take these chances, but when it came to the Imperial treasure collected for a whole year, and to the whole year’s supply of merchandise, they would not risk the attack of the buccaneers, but came across the old highway.

Porto Bello rapidly lost its importance after the revolt of the Spanish colonies in the early part of the nineteenth century. There was no longer any treasure tribute to be shipped to Spain. The building of the railroad in 1855 entirely deprived Porto Bello of the little importance left it by the Spanish colonial revolution, and when we first occupied it, we found nothing but a fishing village of a couple of hundred natives, who lived by fishing and some agriculture. There was a very marked contrast between the squalid native and the carved stone building which made his residence. The walls of many of the public buildings and some of the more opulent private buildings are still standing, and are used by the natives. And the frowning old forts are in an excellent state of preservation.

We placed a large force here which worked the quarry. At first our malarial rate was excessively high, but in a very few months malaria was controlled and the force here got along about as well as at the other places of employment. It was always the case that when our forces occupied a locality, for the first three or four months the malarial rate was high. Of course we could have avoided this if we had been notified two or three weeks beforehand and had sent up a sanitary force to do preliminary work, but such notification was not always possible in the exigencies of construction work.

Porto Bello at first gave us considerable anxiety; we knew its ancient history, and feared that we might not be able to control disease there. But the difficulties appeared no greater there than at several other points occupied by us.

Our laborers and working forces occupied the side of the mountain on the north side of the bay opposite the old town of Porto Bello, and the quarry was worked first where the old fort stood. We soon found that our employees were so much in the town of Porto Bello that they contracted malaria there, and that though we were able to control it in our own village on the mountain side, we could not prevent our people from contracting malaria from the natives in the town of Porto Bello. The town was located outside the Canal Zone, in the jurisdiction of the Republic of Panama. We therefore requested the Panaman Government to appoint the chief sanitary officer the health officer of the town of Porto Bello. It had been generally agreed that wherever it was necessary for the protection of the health of the Canal employees the Panaman Government would surrender this authority to the chief sanitary officer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.

We introduced the same health measures as in the other sanitary districts, which we expect soon to describe, and in a few months had malaria here completely under control. Porto Bello was located well within the San Blas country. Though the inhabitants of the town were Panamanians and recognized the authority of the Republic of Panama, all of the Republic east of this point, in area about one-half of the state of Panama, was entirely uninhabited, except by a few San Blas Indians, not more than thirty thousand all told.

The largest product of these Indians was cocoanuts, and this cocoanut trade employed a considerable number of light draft schooners and canoes. These fleets rendezvoused in the harbor of Porto Bello. They carried on their trade as far east as the Gulf of Atrato, and the city of Cartagena, in Colombia. There was, therefore, a probability of the introduction of infectious disease to the Canal Zone by this route.

To protect ourselves against this disease we had to establish a quarantine station at Porto Bello. The Panaman Government was asked to appoint the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone quarantine officer for the port of Porto Bello. This they promptly did.

The San Blas Indians who inhabited this country east of Porto Bello, are a peculiar and interesting people. This was the region first occupied by Balboa and his Spanish companions. They found here a pretty dense population of Indians, Carib in language and probably in descent. Their habits were agricultural and their character rather warlike. They were thoroughly subjugated and were worked by the Spaniards under their apartamiento system. Las Casas states that the governor, Pedro Arias, during his governorship of some twenty years, caused the death of three million Indians in the present state of Panama. I have no doubt that such a figure is a very great exaggeration, but it shows what a very good old Spanish priest thought of the destruction of Indian life due to the cruelties of the conquistador.

Fifty years later when Sir Francis Drake appeared upon the scene, this Indian population had almost disappeared. Sir Francis Drake, in 1572, secreted his three ships in one of the sheltered and well concealed bays among the San Blas Islands, and marched his one hundred Englishmen through all parts of the present San Blas country. His narrative shows that the Indian population was very much less than that described sixty years before by Balboa, marching through the same country. They had been treated so cruelly by the Spaniards that they thoroughly hated them. As they knew that the English were fighting the Spaniards, they were always ready to help the English and give information.

The governor of Panama, all through the colonial period, was constantly trying to overrun this country, and though at various times forts were built in many localities, and these forts garrisoned for a considerable length of time, the country was never conquered, and the Indians after their original conquest by Balboa never recognized the authority of the Spaniards. They early adopted the policy of not allowing, under any pretext whatever, a white man to come into their country. This law they have enforced up to the present time, and still enforce it. Many white men have lost their lives in trying to explore the interior of the San Blas country.

For generations there has been a good deal of commerce in light-draft schooners along the northern coast of the San Blas country. The San Blas Indian himself, like all the other Carib tribes, is a natural-born sailor. You see him miles from shore in his frail dugout, in the roughest sort of weather. It has been his custom for generations to ship aboard sailing-vessels visiting his country, occasionally for very long voyages, as far even as London or New York, so that when you meet him, he is very likely to speak English, and on occasions of state, wear European clothes. In the ten years that we have been at work on the Isthmus the San Blas Indians have acquired considerable confidence in us, and have become quite friendly. They come to the hospitals very freely for treatment and surgical operations, and the men can now be seen almost any day in Colon trading. Whenever they come up to Colon, they wear European clothing. This is of every variety and style, but the hat is always the same, a derby!

The present government of the Republic of Panama has induced the old Chief to recognize formally the authority of the Republic. This has not been brought about by force, but principally by freeing the trade with the Indians of all duties, and by flattering the old Chief.

As an official of the Panaman Government, the Chief is authorized to wear a most splendid gold-laced uniform coat, furnished by the Panaman Government. This will not, however, always retain the allegiance of the old man.

Not very long ago the Panaman Government established a small police station at the extreme end of the northern coast of the Republic. The President of the Republic took occasion to inspect this post, and went down on the only war vessel the Republic possessed, a twenty-ton steam launch. As they passed the island in San Blas Bay on which was located the principal town of the Indians, the old Chief ran up the Colombian flag, and notified the President that he had changed his allegiance from Panama to Colombia. As the old fellow controlled a full quarter of the territory of Panama, this meant a good deal to the Republic, but the President very wisely made no attempt at force. He granted the few unimportant requests of the Indians; increased the old Chief in his rank; gave him a new coat with more lace than the former, and the flag of Panama now floats serenely where the Colombian flag then floated.

While the Indians recognize the overlordship of the Republic of Panama, I doubt if the President, or any other white official, would be allowed to spend a night in the San Blas country, nor would they during our whole stay on the Isthmus allow any official of the Canal Commission to spend a night in this domain.

Some years ago the Indians reported to me that they had yellow fever among their people, and requested my help. As their territory came directly up to the Canal Zone, it was important for us to know whether or not this was really true. A party of sanitary officials, consisting of Dr. Carter, Major Lyster, myself and others, went down on a steamer to investigate. We went by appointment to the principal town. The Indians were very glad to see us, and received us most hospitably. It was a very picturesque scene as we approached the landing. The whole population was drawn up on the beach in their gala attire, to do us honor. The women, who had probably never before seen a white man, were dressed very much as described by the earlier explorers in the middle of the seventeenth century; a skirt of some bright material and a scarf of brilliant red around the shoulders; gold ornaments in great profusion; nose rings, ear-rings, heavy bracelets on the upper arm and around the ankles. A most peculiar custom among the young women was that of binding very tightly around the calves of both legs a band of beadwork, from four to six inches broad. Some had the same band on the upper arm. This band had been worn so long and was so tight that it had made a deep, permanent depression in the muscular tissue; enough I should have thought to cause some lameness, but in no case could I see that it interfered with locomotion. The early explorers also refer to this custom.

Another custom which I have seen referred to and which attracted our attention among these Indians, is the manner in which the women smoke their cigars. I saw many of them putting the lighted end in their mouths and smoking the cigar by drawing the air through it that way.

After seeing the display of gold ornaments I could well understand how Balboa collected such large quantities of gold as he describes, in his expeditions through the country. I estimate that the women I saw on this occasion averaged in their rings and bracelets ten or fifteen ounces of gold apiece. The conquistadors, no doubt, when they entered a town seized all this gold.

The Indians, as I have said, received us very cordially, and brought to us all their sick, and apparently wanted us to give some medicine to everyone in the village. This we cheerfully did, giving them the best advice we could, but when evening came, they politely notified us of their national custom with regard to white men spending a night on shore. We took the hint and returned aboard our steamer.

This disease from which they were suffering we found to be not yellow fever, but pneumonia. While ashore, we had noticed a Jamaican negro paddling around in a dugout. Upon inquiry, we were told that he was our professional rival prescribing various patent medicines for the Indians. A short time after our return to Colon I was told that the custom among the San Blas Indians was to execute the doctor whenever his patient died, and that our unfortunate rival, the Jamaican negro, had been executed for this cause a few days after we left. We had prescribed for one or two patients in the last stages of consumption who evidently had not many days to live. We have, therefore, been very chary about returning to the San Blas country, and strongly suspect that we are marked in the national archives for execution under the San Blas law for the practice of medicine.

The San Blas Indian was very independent in all his ideas, and considered his government as the political equal of the Canal Government, the United States, or any other government.

In looking about for a place in which to get sand to make concrete for the Gatun locks, Colonel Sibert, with a party of engineers, visited this same Chief. They found here what they considered suitable sand, and tried to purchase from the old Chief the right to use it. He was, however, very short with them; told them that the San Blas Indians had need of all the sand the Almighty had given them and hinted very broadly that it would be healthy for Colonel Sibert and his party to return to their boats and leave the country.