He came to Cuba at a time when one third of the officers of my staff died of yellow fever, and we were discouraged at the failure of our efforts to control it." Following the example of Havana other centres were attacked, at Vera Cruz and in Brazil, with the same success, and it is safe to say that now, thanks to the researches of Reed and his colleagues, with proper measures, no country need fear a paralyzing outbreak of this once dreaded disease.
The scientific researches in the last two decades of the nineteenth century made possible the completion of the Panama Canal.

The narrow isthmus separating the two great oceans and joining the two great continents, has borne for four centuries an evil repute as the White Man's Grave.

Silent upon a peak of Darien, stout Cortez with eagle eye had gazed on the Pacific.

As early as 1520, Saavedra proposed to cut a canal through the Isthmus.

There the first city was founded by the conquerors of the new world, which still bears the name of Panama.
Spaniards, English and French fought along its coasts; to it the founder of the Bank of England took his ill-fated colony; Raleigh, Drake, Morgan the buccaneer, and scores of adventurers seeking gold, found in fever an enemy stronger than the Spaniard.