Difference between revisions of "Panama Canal"
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[[Image:Panama Canal Locks.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Miraflores locks]] | [[Image:Panama Canal Locks.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Miraflores locks]] | ||
| − | Originally the French attempted to build a canal through the isthmus, under the leadership of [[Ferdinand de Lesseps]], the visonary who built the [[Suez Canal]]. He was the people's hero; the epitemy of a Frenchman. They began digging on January 20, 1882, with much champange and dynamite. With de Lesseps to guide them, the French were cocky, thinking that such a canal expert could not fail them. During the convention which decided whether they would build the canal, any prophet predicting high costs and death tolls was not heeded. The workers were confident the job would be done | + | Originally the French attempted to build a canal through the isthmus, under the leadership of [[Ferdinand de Lesseps]], the visonary who built the [[Suez Canal]]. He was the people's hero; the epitemy of a Frenchman. They began digging on January 20, 1882, with much champange and dynamite. With de Lesseps to guide them, the French were cocky, thinking that such a canal expert could not fail them. During the convention which decided whether they would build the canal, any prophet predicting high costs and death tolls was not heeded. The workers were confident the job would be done in six years. |
| − | But | + | |
| + | But their attempt ended after 22,000 of them died, due partly to yellow fever or desentary. Mostly, however, it was malaria that killed the workers. It was a widely accepted fact that jungle disease was caused by a "noxious vapor" in the air. The condition of the was atrotiously unsanitary. The initial cost of the canal was 300 millilon francs. Some 5,609 Americans died in the subsequent successful attempt to build the canal, the lower number reflecting medical advances of the time. | ||
The canal was not just an engineering, but also a medical triumph, as U. S. Army physician [[Walter Reed]] identified the mosquito ''Aedes aegypti'' as the carrier of yellow fever. Mosquito-control measures limited the spread of infection and made it possible to complete the work. | The canal was not just an engineering, but also a medical triumph, as U. S. Army physician [[Walter Reed]] identified the mosquito ''Aedes aegypti'' as the carrier of yellow fever. Mosquito-control measures limited the spread of infection and made it possible to complete the work. | ||
Revision as of 23:06, November 8, 2007
A canal in the Isthmus of Panama. Completed in 1914, it was built by the Americans under President Theodore Roosevelt.
Originally the French attempted to build a canal through the isthmus, under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the visonary who built the Suez Canal. He was the people's hero; the epitemy of a Frenchman. They began digging on January 20, 1882, with much champange and dynamite. With de Lesseps to guide them, the French were cocky, thinking that such a canal expert could not fail them. During the convention which decided whether they would build the canal, any prophet predicting high costs and death tolls was not heeded. The workers were confident the job would be done in six years.
But their attempt ended after 22,000 of them died, due partly to yellow fever or desentary. Mostly, however, it was malaria that killed the workers. It was a widely accepted fact that jungle disease was caused by a "noxious vapor" in the air. The condition of the was atrotiously unsanitary. The initial cost of the canal was 300 millilon francs. Some 5,609 Americans died in the subsequent successful attempt to build the canal, the lower number reflecting medical advances of the time.
The canal was not just an engineering, but also a medical triumph, as U. S. Army physician Walter Reed identified the mosquito Aedes aegypti as the carrier of yellow fever. Mosquito-control measures limited the spread of infection and made it possible to complete the work.
Trivia
- A well-known palindrome (a sentence that reads the same forwards and backwards) is:
- A man, a plan, a canal—Panama!
The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough, 1977
