The building of the Panama Canal could not have been undertaken without the brilliant assistance of Major General William Crawford Gorgas. For two years prior to construction, Gorgas and his team worked to eradicate yellow fever, control malaria through introducing higher sanitation standards, and turn the disease-infested Canal Zone into a healthy and safe place for people to work in.
Gorgas was born in Mobile, Alabama on October 3, 1854. He began his career in the US Army as a medical officer after graduating from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City as a doctor in 1879. While working in Fort Brown, Texas, Gorgas witnessed his first yellow fever epidemic and the human devastation had a lasting effect on him (he caught the disease himself, but managed to recover).
During the [G 15 / Spanish - American War] in 1898, Gorgas was given the rank of major and transferred to Havana, Cuba as chief sanitation officer. Filled with wounded men surviving under drastic conditions, Havana was a disease-ridden abyss. He and his team cleaned up the city and managed to control diseases such as malaria and yellow fever after conducting a number of experiments on the transmission of the diseases through the mosquito.
President Roosevelt, under the recommendation of John G Walker (then chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission), promoted Gorgas to Colonel and sent him to Panama in 1904 to [V 006 / clean up] the Canal Zone in a similar way. Not only was he credited for completely eradicating yellow fever from the area in just two years, he also turned the zone into one of the healthiest areas in South America through decent sanitation methods.
Following his posting in Panama he served in World War I as Surgeon General of the US Army with the rank of Major General. He died on July 3, 1920 in London.
