Canals, Epiphany and the Unsung

Why banks are incompetent? Banks and America's leadership are incompetent when leadership invests in stupidity.

March Madness is here! Beware the Ides of March - Shakespeare

Recent investments in stupidity reaffirm Einstein's assertion that Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

In America, basketball has become an alternative economic incentive - for the economically deprived. Oftentimes it is the alternative to prison. Rev. Jesse Jackson called prison the exhaust of a failed economic engine.

Investing in Stupidity

The world is undergoing an epiphany and as was experienced during the Covid Pandemic, America and much of the world were unprepared for covid's ravages and will be unprepared for the next pandemic.

Revelation

I will use Cuba and the Panama Canal as an example of leadership dealing competently with the devastation of disease. A Canal across Panama (Grand Colombia at the time) was perceived as essential to U.S. economic growth. A canal would facilitate the process (logistics) of delivering goods from one coast of America to the other.

This logistical and economic facilitation was experienced with the opening of the Erie Canal - which opened up the American West.

The French who succeeded with de Lesseps and Eiffel in building the Suez Canal, failed because of disease - to build the Panama Canal.

The Conquest of Disease

The conquest of disease resulted from the collaboration of Dr. William Gorgas, Dr. Walter Reed and Dr. Carlos Finlay.

Wikipedia: Finlay was the son of a Scotch father and a French mother whose family lived in Trinidad. An aunt who had a school in Edinburgh taught him at home until he was eleven; he then went to France for further, more formal schooling. There he developed severe cholera which left him with a speech impediment—a lisp—that he never lost. In 1851, having returned home to Cuba, he nearly died of?typhoid fever. Undaunted, Finlay became and remained all his life an avid sportsman, swimmer, and horseback rider. Besides Spanish, he became fluent in English, French, and German.

Finlay attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he studied under Robley Dunglison and John K. Mitchell and his son, Weir. He graduated in 1855, rejecting lucrative offers to practice in the Spanish colony of?New York?City. After a brief trip to Peru, he settled in Havana, where he practiced general medicine and ophthalmology.

Early life and education

Finlay was born Juan Carlos Finlay y de Barrés in?Puerto Príncipe?(now Camagüey), Cuba to Scottish-born Dr. Edward (Eduardo) Finlay and French-born Elisa (Isabel) de Barrés.[2]

At that time Cuba was part of the Kingdom of Spain. He reversed the order of his given names to "Carlos Juan" later in his life. His father was a physician who had fought alongside?Simón Bolívar, and his family owned a coffee plantation in?Alquízar. He attended school in France in 1844, but was forced to return to Cuba after two years because he contracted?cholera.

After recovering, he returned to Europe in 1848, but became stuck in England for another two years due to political turmoil, and after arriving in France to continue his education, he contracted?typhoid fever?and again returned to Cuba.[1]

Because the University of Havana would not recognize his European academic credits, he enrolled at?Jefferson Medical College?in?Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which did not require prerequisites. Here Finlay met?John Kearsley Mitchell, a proponent of the?germ theory of disease, and his son?Silas Weir Mitchell, who supervised his studies. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1855.[1]

He then returned to?Havana?and set up an ophthalmology practice in 1857, and then studied in?Paris?in 1860–61. In October 1865 he married Adela Shine, a native of the?Island of Trinidad. They had three sons, Charles, George and Frank Finlay.[1]

My Comment: The collaboration of Drs. Finlay, Gorgas and Reed,

led to the scientific confirmation of Dr. Finlay's assertion that Yellow Fever was caused by the anopheles mosquito. It was this revelation, this epiphany, this conquest of disease that resulted in the successful construction of the Panama Canal. It was Dr. Carlos Finlay's conquest of cholera and typhoid fever in himself through the same regimen as Teddy Roosevelt - that led to his epiphany.