The Path Between the Seas

by David McCullough

So while Stegomyia mosquitoes were always readily within range, their breeding grounds closely, neatly defined, Anopheles were literally everywhere, and in fantastic numbers, since the female deposits as many as two hundred eggs every ten days. The sanitary measures taken at Havana—the clearing away of garbage and refuse, the installation of proper drainage systems plus the campaign on Stegomyia’s breeding grounds had had the effect of giving no mosquito, Anopheles included, much chance to propagate within the city limits. But what chance would there be at Colón with its swamps or along the canal line? Malaria, not yellow fever, Gorgas stressed to his associates, was the problem upon which their success would ride or fall. Malaria, he emphasized, had accounted for the greatest loss of life during the French years. “If we can control malaria, I feel very little anxiety about other diseases. If we do not control malaria our mortality is going to be heavy.” Knowledge of the kind gathered at Havana on Stegomyia would now have to be gathered on Anopheles.