William gorgas panama canal

Army — He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry these diseases, for which he used the discoveries made by the Cuban doctor Carlos J. At first, Finlay's strategy was greeted with considerable skepticism and opposition to such hygiene measures.

However, the measures Gorgas put into practice as the head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission saved thousands of lives and contributed to the success of the canal's construction.

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He was a Georgist and argued that adopting Henry George 's popular 'Single Tax' would be a way to bring about sanitary living conditions, especially for the poor. He was sent to Fort Brown —84 to take control of an epidemic of yellow fever. One of his patients was Marie Cook Doughty, who nearly died from the disease. In the course of caring for her, he contracted the disease himself.

They both recovered together, and during the time of convalescence, fell in love, soon thereafter getting married. Through his efforts draining both the Aedes aegypti mosquito vector breeding ponds and quarantining of yellow fever patients in screened service rooms, cases in Havana plunged from to zero within a year. As chief sanitary officer on the canal project, Gorgas implemented far-reaching sanitary programs, including the draining of ponds and swamps, fumigation, use of mosquito netting , and construction of public water systems.

These measures were instrumental in permitting the construction of the Panama Canal , as they significantly prevented illness due to yellow fever and malaria which had also been shown to be transmitted by mosquitoes in among the thousands of workers involved in the building project. Gorgas served as president of the American Medical Association in — He was appointed as Surgeon General of the Army in Gorgas retired from the Army in , having reached the mandatory retirement age of He was married to Marie Cook Doughty — of Cincinnati.

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