Malaria and Yellow Fever- Death Stalks the Digs

1905 A Yellow Fever Quarantine Station in Panama

Image www.canalmuseum.com

“A white man’s a fool to go there (Panama) and a bigger fool to stay,” was the fearful declaration of just one of the white workers who packed up hurriedly and left behind that “God forsaken” place called Panama. He, as well as scores of white workers who’d been recruited to work on construction projects were reacting to the mortal diseases that all who ventured onto the isthmus from distant lands might succumb to.

The West Indian and other Silver roll workers, of course, hardly had much choice. For the most part they would have to remain and brave the perils of disease that greeted them as they disembarked from the ships that carried them from their island homes.

It had been known since the French era that a yellow fever patient had less than a 50-50 chance of survival once he contracted the disease. As with malaria the patient, at first, would suffer fits of shivering, very high fever and an overwhelming thirst, not to mention the debilitating headaches and sharp pains in the back and legs. After bouts of uncontrollable restlessness the patient would then begin to turn a yellow hue especially in the face and eyes.

In the last stages the unfortunate patient would start to spit up mouthfuls of deep red, almost black, blood. This terrifying “black vomit” or “vómito negro” would usually be a sign that his end was near. Suddenly his body temperature would drop and his pulse would wane. Unusually calm, during his last 8 to 10 hours of his earthly life his flesh would turn very cold to the touch, and finally he would die.* Malaria, the disease that really “never went away” if strict measures were not observed, probably killed more West Indians than “yellow jack.” Since, unlike yellow fever, its range was just about everywhere and not confined to certain geographical areas, it wreaked havoc amongst the workers and filled the death tolls.

Black laborers no less than the white died of both malaria and yellow fever and with the same horrible and sudden outcome. In the beginning there was a mistaken belief on the part of ICC (Isthmian Canal Commission) administrators that the West Indians were immune to yellow fever. More resistant to yellow fever from growing up on Caribbean islands beset by various tropical fevers such as dengue, they might have acquired some resistance to this type of malady. But there was no known human immunity to malaria at the time and many deaths, recorded and unrecorded were caused by this terrifying disease.

Malaria followed, more or less the same pattern of symptoms as yellow fever, with the notable distinction that, after the incipient spells of shivering- uncontrollable shivering- and chattering teeth, the patient would then experience very high fever accompanied by an overwhelming thirst. As the fever would begin to fall off he would then break out in a drenching sweat. Often, if the patient at all survived the highly debilitating effects of this dreaded disease, the person would often be beset by a profound depression- melancholia- a feeling so widely experienced in Panama.

* Many of our facts for this dynamic period can be found in the excellent account of the construction of the Panama Canal, The Pathway Between the Seas, The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1977

This story will continue.