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People faced diseases such as Yellow Fever and Malaria and they had a shortage of food and water.

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Two serious challenges to the building of the Panama Canal were mountainous terrain and tropical diseases such as Yellow Fever.

The first attempt to build the Panama Canal was made by the engineer who had dug the Suez Canal in Egypt. But unlike Suez, which was simply a large ditch across flat desert, the Isthmus of Panama had a mountain range down the middle. The solution was the creation of a series of "locks" which would raise and lower the ships as they crossed from one side to the other.

The tropical diseases took a heavy toll on the workers until a U.S. Army doctor, Walter Reed, discovered the source of the fever to be bites from infected mosquitoes. The Army exterminated the mosquitoes and the canal was completed.

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13y ago

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