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Regulating Death And Building Empire : American Doctors And The Construction Of The Panama Canal, 1904-1914, Sarah Rhoads

Honors Theses

In May 1904, American engineers, doctors, nurses, and laborers arrived in Panama to begin work on one of the most expensive, challenging, and rewarding technological achievements of the twentieth century- the Panama Canal. At the time, the majority of Americans saw Panama as a wild tropical jungle, with dangerous diseases and a hostile climate. One of the most prevalent diseases in tropical regions, yellow fever, also known as yellow jack, was known to pose an enormous challenge to the success of the canal construction- the first mountain blocking Panama from successful U.S. intervention (see image above). In the popular U.S. …