ABSTRACT
The history of tropical diseases in Caribbean countries has been unusually dynamic, alternating disastrous epidemics with outstanding successes in disease control. These violent changes were often related to efforts at modifying geographical or agricultural limitations. The yellow fever and malaria outbreaks during attempts by the French to dig a canal in Panama during 1880 were followed in quick succession by elimination of yellow fever from Havana, Cuba after the Spanish-American War of 1898, and then the extension of yellow fever and malaria control to the Panama Canal Zone for the second attempt at building the canal.
