Sanitation of the Panama Canal Zone (Gorgas)
Saneamiento de la zona del Canal de Panamá (Gorgas)
- Date
- 1904-1906 · confidence high
- Place
- Canal Zone, Panama City, Panama
- Credited to
- William C. Gorgas and the Sanitary Department of the Isthmian Canal Commission
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
In 1904-1906 Gorgas organised a massive campaign of drainage, fumigation, screens and oil on standing water that eliminated yellow fever in the Canal Zone and reduced malaria. Without it the canal's construction would have repeated the French disaster, with tens of thousands of deaths between 1881 and 1889.
Yellow fever disappeared from the zone by the end of 1905; malaria persisted at a lower incidence. French mortality figures (around 20,000 or more) vary by author. Gorgas had to overcome initial resistance from the commission.
What it led to
- viability of building the Panama Canal (1914)
- a model of tropical sanitation in engineering projects
- recognition of vector control as a discipline