Five Years at Panama. By Wolfred Nelson, M.D. (Sampson Low,
Marston, and Co.)—Dr. Nelson has much that is interesting to tell us about men and manners in Panama. He describes the churches, the priests, and population generally; and he also gives us sketches of the country's past, in which, of course, Morgan the Buccaneer is a prominent figure. Morgan's conduct seems to have been atrocious in the highest degree. In his own peculiar
province, the public health, Dr. Nelson has some strange things to relate. Anything more scandalous than the management of the cemeteries it would be impossible to conceive. After a very short time the bodies are "unburied," liberating an uncounted number of yellow-fever and small-pox germs. The consequence is that the Isthmus is a disease-distributing centre of the most deadly kind. This concerns the whole world, so vast is the traffic that goes by that route, and Dr. Nelson is decidedly of opinion that the nuisance should be forcibly abated. To expect anything from the Colombian Government is absurd. The sub-title of the book is the "Trans-Isthmian Canal." As the preface is dated more than three years back, the figures are now familiar to every one. The author seems to have appreciated the real state of the undertaking very rightly.
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