And it may also be here mentioned that the connection between bubonic plague and rats, and the fleas that infest them, was discovered by the Japanese scientist, Kitasato.
The history of the canal may be touched on, if only to show the American method of securing a desired object, certainly a quick, effective and, after all, the only practical method.

The Panama railway was built by Americans in 1855 to meet the rush to California gold-fields.

The De Lesseps Company bought the road for an enormous figure, and started the canal works, to be abandoned later on, but again taken up by a new French Company.

In 1901 Uncle Sam got his "fine work" in when he bluffed the new French Panama Company into selling it to him for 40,000,000 dollars, simply by threatening to adopt the Nicaragua route.

Yet the Company's property was well worth the 100,000,000 dollars asked for it.
To carry out the bluff, the Isthmian Canal Commission (U.S.) actually reported to Congress that the Nicaragua route was the most "practical and feasible" one, when it was well known to the Commission that the route was so impracticable as not to be worthy of consideration.