From Cuba to the Panama Canal: a tropical medicine journey

This year, over 5% of global trade will transit the Panama Canal and in 2010 it is projected that the canal will celebrate its millionth transit.1 It has now been 94 years since the first steamship began its journey through the 50-mile long canal. The building of the canal, while a technical and mechanical marvel, was also a seminal public health experience. The theory attributing the transmission of yellow fever to the mosquito Aedes aegypti, first proposed by the Cuban physician Carlos J. Finlay decades earlier, was recognised for its accuracy and significance. My summer vacation of 2008 allowed me the opportunity to visit both the birthplace of Carlos J. Finlay and the Miraflores Locks of the Panama