For a While, the Tiny Mosquito was Destroying Armies

A key to the success of the Panama Canal was Colonel William P. Gorgas’ mosquito-eradication program, which saved thousands of workers’ lives. This example of a U.S. gold coin commemorating the construction of the Panama Canal and the rebuilding of the City of San Francisco sold for $152,750 at a January 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The French were no strangers to the Stegomyia fasciata. It was, after all, that tiny mosquito that wiped out the French troops Napoleon had dispatched to squash a slave uprising in Haiti and then the French-controlled colony of Saint-Domingue. From 1802 to 1803, yellow fever ravaged 50,000 troops, including their commanding officer General Emmanuel Leclerc. His replacement, General Rochambeau, retreated with a mere 3,000 soldier-survivors.

Experts estimate that twice as many soldiers were lost in Haiti than were killed in the world famous Battle of Waterloo!

Napoleon finally conceded that they were no match for this mysterious, silent killer and abandoned the ambitious plans to expand the empire into the Louisiana Territory, selling it for $15 million, which doubled the size of the young United States. It was an epic bargain for the United States and dramatically reduced the risk of future wars with France, which were almost inevitable.

Later in 1889, another Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, led a decade-long and terminally troubled attempt to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama that crumbled after 20,000 workers (one-third of his force) died from yellow fever – a highly contagious, usually fatal disease contracted from a single mosquito bite.

Au revoir, monsieurs.

In America, the fever reached epidemic proportions as well. More than 300,000 cases were reported in the United States between 1793 and 1900; at times with mortality rates of up to 85 percent. The disease attacks the liver, turns the skin yellow, raises body temperatures and causes internal bleeding before the victim lapses into a coma. More U.S. troops were killed in the Spanish-American War by yellow fever than by the enemy. Yellow fever, nicknamed “yellow jack” after the pennants that flew to signal a quarantine, arrived in Central America in mid-16th century aboard slave ships travelling from Africa. Despite countless hypotheses, the cause of the disease and its rapid spread remained a mystery.

Dr. Carlos Finlay of Cuba had long theorized that mosquitos carried and spread yellow fever. The conventional medical establishment criticized Finlay, calling him “mosquito man.” But no one had a better idea. In desperation, U.S. Army Major Walter Reed, his fellow doctors, and a detachment of soldiers traveled to Havana in June 1900 and tested Finlay’s theory by volunteering to let indigenous mosquitos bite them.

On Aug. 27, Dr. James Carroll allowed himself to be bitten, fell ill with the disease, but survived. Reed survived his bout as well. Several other colleagues died and both Reed and Carroll sustained lasting damage to their health. The soldiers refused to accept a $250 bonus, believing it would cheapen their sacrifice. Public opinion was cynical and negative. American newspapers mocked the experiment or simply ignored it. Congress even denied a pension to one soldier, the first one who developed the test even though the experiment left him paralyzed.

Yet the team prevailed and in October 1900, Walter Reed finally declared publicly that “the mosquito served as the intermediate host for the parasite of yellow fever.” The disease’s cycle was soon unraveled. Female mosquitos picked up yellow fever in the first three days of a patient’s infection and became contagious after a 12-day incubation period with the pandemic disease.

Eventually, Maj. William Crawford Gorgas eradicated the disease in Panama and the Canal Zone. He also wiped out another mosquito that spread malaria and rats that carried bubonic plague. Gorgas’ triumph allowed the United States to begin their canal dig and finish it by 1914. Panama’s death rate from yellow jack had dropped to only half that of the United States.

Problem solved.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Americans Looked Beyond ‘Modern Art’ to a Grander Project … the Panama Canal

Henry Lyman Sayen’s Cubist Composition, 1917, realized $100,000 at a November 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 1913, the International Exhibition of Modern Art was the first large exhibition of its kind in America. It was held at the 69th Regiment Armory in NYC, before moving on to Chicago and Boston. More than 70,000 people walked the length of the Armory to witness the visions of Picasso, Matisse and Duchamp. Judging by press reports, not a single person appears to have left without voicing an opinion, most likely a negative one.

Who, they asked, could call such rubbish art?

Americans, generally accustomed to realistic art, were astonished by the experimental styles of Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism – the avant-garde experimental styles of Europe. Many in the New York crowd would have nothing to do with it and in Boston and Chicago, art students burned Matisse and others in effigy.

Kenyon Cox, a prominent author, illustrator and teacher, saw in the show nothing less than the “total destruction of the art of painting.” The star image of the exhibition was Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” or as Teddy Roosevelt called it, “Naked Man Running Down Stairs.” TR added it reminded him of a Navajo rug he stood on each morning while shaving. Still, other people saw something else entirely … “An Explosion in a Shingle Factory” or “An Earthquake on the Subway.”

As New Yorkers were scoffing at modern painting, a more contemporary and pleasing project was nearing completion 2,300 miles south of Manhattan. The dream of uniting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans dated back to the Spanish explorations in the 16th century.

It seemed like such a simple task to dig a canal bisecting the thin strip of land connecting North and South America. Americans wanted a connecting waterway all their own, a way to move freight and passengers coast to coast with ease.

A French company had tried and failed miserably in the 1880s, as malaria and yellow fever crippled their plans. 20,000 laborers had died and it destroyed the reputation of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal. His insistence on a sea-level canal (à la the Suez) neglected equatorial rains, half-submerged trees and, most significantly, the extraordinary amounts of terrain involved.

For perspective, the site required the excavation of three times the dirt removed to create the Suez, an unprecedented reconfiguration of the earth itself. Equipment for such a task did not exist yet.

But no president loved a challenge more than Teddy Roosevelt, who launched into it with vigor in 1904. America would dig the Big Ditch just as they would later land a man on the moon. The secret sauce included controlling malaria, creating an elaborate system of locks to minimize the digging, and a vision for world leadership. TR sensed it was America’s destiny to use the two oceans to safely convey the civilized world into the new century.

When the Panama Canal opened on Aug. 15, 1914, six months ahead of schedule, Teddy Roosevelt was long gone from the presidency. Attention turned to Europe and an event that would soon cast a giant shadow over the earth: a world war!

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].