The last-mentioned achievement — the mas tery of problems of tropical sanitation for the safeguarding of the health of all who labor on the fruit plantations—deserves our special consideration at this moment. The head of the Tulane School of Tropical Medicine of New Orleans observes: "The vast improve ments there [in the Latin American tropics] do the genius of American medical men a credit that only future ages will appreciate. Every one knows what great sanitary work the American Government has accomplished in the Canal Zone, but few realize that a similar im provement has been worked in the rich fruit centres? The facts adduced in support or con firmation of this statement are substantially the following: In 1900, about three years be fore the United States took over the Panama Canal and began the work of sanitation in the Canal Zone, more than 15,000 men were at work for a fruit company on Caribbean tracts of coastal lands which had been regarded al ways with fear and aversion, as though they had been necessarily and permanently disease breeding areas. But the rate of mortality among laborers and officials was not high, for the simple reason that the basic principles of that system which afterward made possible the completion of the Panama Canal (q.v.) without terrible sacrifices of human life had already been studied, tested, accepted, and the appropriate remedies had been already applied. the selection of sites for new towns and settlements careful attention was given to the requirements of drainage. All adjacent swamps were cleared, and the grass and underbrush kept cut about the houses. The laborers were verbally instructed how to take precautions against the known dangers of these districts, and the medical employees of the company made regular inspections of their places of living,° to enforce compliance with such in structions. °Hospitals were erected and prompt measures taken to isolate any victim of con tagious diseases.° With the co-operation of the various governments, strict quarantine Was en forced against certain foreign ports whenever such action became advisable. The medical officers of the banana companies very promptly turned to good account the discovery (confirmed practically in 1898) of the causes of yellow fever and malarial fevers, and employed the most effective methods for the extermination of the disease-bearing insects; indeed, there seems to be no good reason for withholding endorsement of the assertion that sanitary work and experi ments conducted by the pioneer banana com panies in Costa Rica and elsewhere in the years between 1873 and 1899 were of value to those medical scientists who finally were °able to announce to the world that the mysteries of yellow fever and malaria had been solved.° After 1899 all houses occupied by employees not immune to such fevers were screened sometimes doubly screened — to exclude per nicious mosquitoes. Petroleum was used freely in stagnant pools and slow-running streams. All expedients for eliminating the tropical menaces to health were tested and, if approved, installed on a liberal scale. For example, we may mention the adoption of the following sanitary measures at Puerto Barrios, Guate mala: All low-lying places near that town were filled in or flushed with salt water and danger-spots above high tide were drained. The camps out on the neighboring plantations were located on high, well-drained ground, and all grass and other vegetation kept low for 150 yards around these camps; tanks holding the water supply were thoroughly screened; all surface water was oiled at stated periods. The results are satisfactory; for no case of any quarantinable disease has appeared during several recent years at this port or at others to which similar preventive measures and methods have been applied.
The banana lands owned by a single north ern company are 150,000 acres in extent, and those owned by its competitors and by inde pendent growers who sell to the various im porting houses, about 370,000 acres. Even now,
the total area devoted to this agricultural in dustry approximates 520,000 acres. We have mentioned already the development of railroad transportation facilities in the Central American republics that stood most in need of them. Not less noteworthy is another outgrowth of this international dealing in the fruits of the Latin American tropics — the establishment of new steamship transportation facilities. One of the fruit companies operates 90 vessels (248, 607 tons in all), with accommodations for 3,000 passengers and carrying about 360,000 tons annually of general freight for the public thus opening not only new markets to manu facturers in the United States but also open ing the markets and the opportunities of the great world to the people of Central America who had been shut off from both during long and sometimes depressing, though never, to the people there who inherit traits of the Indomi table Iberian, wholly discouraging ages.— Pro fessor C. L. Jones, of the University of Wis consin, writes: "One company chiefly engaged in the exploitation of the banana trade claims, with its allied interests, to have expended $200, 000,000 in the [Latin] American tropics. It reports its resources devoted to Caribbean de velopment as $88,867,408.27.° Again, on pages 296-297 of 'Caribbean Interests of the United States,' he says that the fruit trade has under gone a development similar to that of the asphalt industry. Production to some extent may be left in the hands of small planters and a minor part of the total amount marketed is still thus grown; but the work even in this stage of the industry is more efficiently per formed by aggregations of capital which can assure a steady supply and transportation facili ties that can be depended upon. The small planter must ordinarily market his fruit by sending it to tidewater or to the railroad on muleback. The large company can build branch railroads at a fractional part of the cost of animal transportation; and in this manner it can exploit regions which otherwise lie too far distant to permit their profitable cultivation. If a steamship cannot berth at his dock, the small producer is at a disadvantage because he can neither buy a lighter nor build the necessary landing pier. Moreover, in many of the Caribbean banana regions the public author ities neglect to supply him with these facilities. Shipments of fruits to foreign countries, he adds, cannot take place in the ordinary cargo vessels. Specially constructed steamships with refrigerating appliances are required, to keep the fruits from ripening too rapidly. °As a result of these conditions the export of fruit in the Caribbean has come to be almost entirely controlled by a few large concerns, the pioneer companies.° Particularly interesting are the same writer's comments on Cuba and Honduras. In his opinion the fruit trade of Cuba, still in its infancy, shows promise of healthy de velopment. Bananas for home consumption are grown over the entire island, but are ex ported only from the north coast at the ex treme eastern end where soil and climate are especially favorable. The Cuban citrus fruit (especially grape fruit) industry is increasing in importance. His studies of Central Ameri can countries lead him to say that the pros perity of the foreign trade of Honduras °de pends, even more than in Costa Rica, upon the banana industry. . . . In the production of fruit the country has great possibilities. As yet, this development is confined chiefly to the north-east coast, near the ports of Tela, Ceiba and Trujillo.° Hhe heterogeneous population of the Trujillo region is almost entirely dependent upon the banana trade, which in Honduras has apparently unlimited possibilities of develop ment.