ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the experiences of the author, Arthur Newsholme, during the tour of Central America and Jamaica which was combined with an International Conference on Health Problems in Tropical America. The Conference was intended for the superintendents of the admirable hospitals of the Fruit Company, erected by them for their employees, as a necessary part of the outfit of each of their banana plantations. In visits to the various hospitals of the United Fruit Company with Dr. Castellani, whose knowledge of tropical diseases is perhaps unsurpassed. At each hospital the medical officers had collected cases, especially skin cases, of doubtful diagnosis and the author was impressed by the large proportion pronounced by Castellani to be manifestations of syphilis. This disease, in fact, is one of the greatest human scourges in the tropics. In Honduras, the proportion of total cases that were syphilitic was very high. In Jamaica more exact information was available. Promiscuity is stated to be almost general.
