e body from the Isthmus. Prompt, intelligent and vigorous
application of the remedies shown to be effective by the mosquito
discoveries not only checked the progress of the pest, but banished
it forever from the Isthmus. In this way, and in this alone, was
the building of the canal made possible. The supreme credit for its
construction therefore belongs to the brave men, surgeons of the United
States Army, who by their high devotion to duty and to humanity risked
their lives in Havana in 1900-1901 to demonstrate the truth of the
mosquito theory."(7)

(7) Bishop: The French at Panama, Scribner's Magazine, January,
1913, p. 42.

One disease has still a special claim upon the public in this country.
Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, in an address on the problem of
typhoid fever in the United States, I contended that the question was
no longer in the hands of the profession. In season and out of season
we had preached salvation from it in volumes which fill state reports,
public health journals and the medical periodicals. Though much has been
done, typhoid fever remains a question of grave national concern. You
lost in this state(7a) in 1911 from typhoid fever 154 lives, every one
sacrificed needlessly, every one a victim of neglect and incapacity.
Between 1200 and 1500 persons had a slow, lingering illness. A nation of
contradictions and paradoxes--a clean people, by whom personal hygiene
is carefully cultivated, but it has displayed in matters of public
sanitation a carelessness simply criminal: a sensible people, among whom
education is more widely diffused than in any other country, supinely
acquiesces in conditions often shameful beyond expression. The solution
of the problem is not very difficult. What has been done elsewhere can
be done here. It is not so much in the cities, though here too the death
rate is still high, but in the smaller towns and rural districts, in
many of which the sanitary conditions are still those of the Middle
Ages. How Galen would have turned up his nose with contempt at the
water supply of the capital of the Dominion of Canada, scourged so
disgracefully by typhoid fever of late! There is no question that the
public is awakening, but many State Boards of Health need more efficient
organization, and larger appropriations. Others are models, and it is
not for lack of example that many lag behind. The health officers should
have special training in sanitary science and special co