Of the total 414 deaths for the final year, 30 were white Americans, 31 were white employees of other nationalities. All the rest, 353, were black. The death rate among all white employees from the United States was actually a mere 2.06 per thousand, an almost unbelievably low figure and deserving all the acclaim that ensued, but the death rate among black workers was 8.23. So, in fact, for all the medical progress that had been made, Panama was still four times more deadly for the black man than it was for the white.
