{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,24]],"date-time":"2026-09-24T12:54:20Z","timestamp":1790254460110,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":115,"publisher":"University of Chicago Press","issue":"4","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Isis"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2007,12]]},"DOI":"10.1086\/529265","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2008,1,11]],"date-time":"2008-01-11T20:06:22Z","timestamp":1200081982000},"page":"724-754","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":59,"title":["Nature\u2019s Agents or Agents of Empire?"],"prefix":"10.1086","volume":"98","author":[{"given":"Paul\u00a0S.","family":"Sutter","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"200","reference":[{"key":"p_n_1","volume-title":"Joseph LePrince and A. J. Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama: The Eradication of Malaria and Yellow Fever in Cuba and Panama","author":"Howard L. O.","year":"1916"},{"issue":"2","key":"p_n_2","first-page":"215","volume":"41","author":"Essig E. O.","year":"1981","journal-title":"Mosquito News"},{"key":"p_n_4","volume-title":"Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca","author":"Adas Michael","year":"1989"},{"key":"p_n_5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4159\/9780674020078"},{"key":"p_n_7","volume-title":"Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad","author":"Jacobson Matthew Frye","year":"1876"},{"key":"p_n_8","unstructured":"Charles Francis Adams, The Panama Canal: An Epochal Event in Sanitation (Boston, 1911), pp.26-27; and"},{"key":"p_n_9","volume-title":"Sanitation in Panama (New York: Appleton","author":"Gorgas William C.","year":"1915"},{"key":"p_n_10","volume-title":"The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal","author":"French The","year":"1870"},{"key":"p_n_12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1540-6563.2004.00089.x"},{"key":"p_n_14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/3985974"},{"key":"p_n_15","volume-title":"though it is well represented in three collections of essays: Gilbert M","author":"This","year":"1998"},{"key":"p_n_16","volume-title":"Cultures of United States Imperialism (Durham","author":"Kaplan Amy","year":"1993"},{"key":"p_n_17","volume-title":"Among other important studies in this field are Mary Renda","year":"1915"},{"key":"p_n_18","volume-title":"Conn.","author":"Hoganson Kristen","year":"1998"},{"key":"p_n_19","volume-title":"Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico","author":"Briggs Laura","year":"2002"},{"key":"p_n_20","volume-title":"Empire, the United States, and the Philippines","author":"Kramer Paul","year":"2006"},{"key":"p_n_21","volume-title":"Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World","year":"1997"},{"key":"p_n_23","volume-title":"Orientalism (New York: Vintage","author":"Said Edward","year":"1979"},{"key":"p_n_25","first-page":"141","volume-title":"The Problem of Nature: Environment, Culture, and","author":"Arnold David","year":"1996"},{"key":"p_n_26","volume-title":"Picturing Tropical Nature (Ithaca","author":"Stepan Nancy Leys","year":"2001"},{"key":"p_n_27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/215497"},{"key":"p_n_28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jhge.2001.0375"},{"key":"p_n_30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/508079"},{"key":"p_n_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"19","DOI":"10.1525\/9780520928251","volume-title":"The Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity","author":"Mitchell Timothy","year":"2002"},{"key":"p_n_32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-8330.2004.00443.x"},{"key":"p_n_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780199256044.001.0001","volume-title":"Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (New York: Oxford Univ","author":"Latour Bruno","year":"2005"},{"key":"p_n_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4159\/9780674039964","volume-title":"Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy","author":"Latour","year":"2004"},{"key":"p_n_35","first-page":"111","volume-title":"The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes","author":"Law John","year":"1987"},{"key":"p_n_36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2080791"},{"key":"p_n_38","volume-title":"Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: Univ","author":"Glacken Clarence J.","year":"1967"},{"key":"p_n_39","first-page":"232","volume-title":"Mass.: Helix","author":"Berenbaum May","year":"1995"},{"key":"p_n_40","unstructured":"Stepan, Picturing Tropical Nature (cit. n. 8), pp.16-17."},{"key":"p_n_41","unstructured":"McCullough, Path between the Seas (cit. n. 4), p.80. For two very different interpretations of Humboldt"},{"key":"p_n_43","volume-title":"The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land (New York: Basic","author":"Valencius Conevery Bolton","year":"2002"},{"key":"p_n_44","volume-title":"Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge (Berkeley: Univ","author":"Nash Linda","year":"2007"},{"key":"p_n_45","volume-title":"Conn.","author":"Mitman Gregg","year":"2007"},{"key":"p_n_47","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/9780822388081"},{"key":"p_n_48","volume-title":"native","author":"Tropical","year":"1974"},{"key":"p_n_49","volume-title":"What Nature Suffers to Groe\": Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680-1920 (Athens: Univ","author":"Stewart Mart","year":"1996"},{"key":"p_n_51","volume-title":"The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History (New York: Cambridge Univ","author":"Kiple Kenneth","year":"1984"},{"key":"p_n_52","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/1170791"},{"key":"p_n_53","volume-title":"Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the West Indies (New York: Cambridge","author":"Sheridan Richard B.","year":"1985"},{"key":"p_n_54","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2147089"},{"key":"p_n_55","first-page":"329","volume":"15","author":"Curtin","year":"1993","journal-title":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences"},{"key":"p_n_57","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/1860958"},{"issue":"1","key":"p_n_58","first-page":"12","volume":"1","author":"Chamberlain Weston","year":"1913","journal-title":"American Journal of Tropical Diseases and Preventive Medicine"},{"key":"p_n_59","volume-title":"The Influence of Tropical Residence on the Blood","author":"Chamberlain","year":"1914"},{"key":"p_n_60","unstructured":"Anderson, Colonial Pathologies (cit. n. 17), pp.74-87."},{"key":"p_n_62","volume-title":"Bull. Hist. Med.","year":"1996"},{"key":"p_n_63","first-page":"3","volume-title":"Further Reports of the Malarial Committee of the Royal Society","author":"Christophers S. R.","year":"1900"},{"key":"p_n_64","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.5962\/bhl.title.54650","volume-title":"Practical Study of Malaria and Other Blood Parasites (London: Univ","author":"Christophers Stephens","year":"1904"},{"key":"p_n_65","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.5962\/bhl.title.22552","volume-title":"Mosquito Brigades and How to Organize Them (London: George Philip","author":"Ross Ronald","year":"1902"},{"key":"p_n_68","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/1858136"},{"key":"p_n_69","first-page":"102","volume-title":"Proceedings of the Canal Zone Medical Association","author":"Carter Henry Rose","year":"1908"},{"key":"p_n_70","volume-title":"Transactions of the International Engineering Congress","author":"Mason Charles F.","year":"1915"},{"key":"p_n_71","volume-title":"Black Labor on a White Canal: Panama","author":"Conniff Michael","year":"1904"},{"key":"p_n_73","volume-title":"Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health (Boston: Beacon","author":"Leavitt Judith Walzer","year":"1996"},{"key":"p_n_74","volume-title":"Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown (Berkeley: Univ","author":"Shah Nayan","year":"2001"},{"key":"p_n_75","volume-title":"Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles","author":"Molina Natalie","year":"1879"},{"key":"p_n_76","volume-title":"To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War","author":"Hunter Tera","year":"1997"},{"key":"p_n_78","volume-title":"Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: Univ","author":"Stern Alexandra Minna","year":"2005"},{"key":"p_n_79","volume-title":"has been carried out as far as is practicable, but it has not occupied as prominent a position as have the other measures referred to\": Mason, \"Sanitation in the Panama Canal Zone","author":"As Charles"},{"key":"p_n_80","unstructured":"Humphreys, Malaria (cit. n. 21), pp.57-62, 73. Stephen Frenkel suggested in his dissertation that sanitary segregation was easier to achieve inPanamaonce canal construction was complete; see"},{"key":"p_n_81","volume-title":"Cultural Imperialism and the Development of the Panama Canal Zone, 1912-1960","author":"Frenkel","year":"1992"},{"key":"p_n_82","volume-title":"Malarial Fever Work on the Isthmus","author":"Carter"},{"key":"p_n_83","unstructured":"Curtin, \"Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa\" (cit. n. 19), pp.597-598; and"},{"key":"p_n_84","volume-title":"Robert Koch: A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology (New York: Springer","author":"Brock Thomas D.","year":"1988"},{"key":"p_n_88","unstructured":"Berenbaum, Bugs in the System (cit. n. 13), p.281. On the history of American entomology and its place in the American scientific establishment see"},{"key":"p_n_89","volume-title":"Brethren of the Net: American Entomology","author":"Sorenson Willis Connor","year":"1840"},{"issue":"3","key":"p_n_90","first-page":"131","volume":"3","author":"Howard L. O.","year":"1929","journal-title":"Agricultural History"},{"key":"p_n_91","volume-title":"The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier (New York: Basic","author":"Lockwood Jeffrey","year":"2004"},{"key":"p_n_92","volume-title":"The Great Gypsy Moth War: The History of the First Campaign in Massachusetts to Eradicate the Gypsy Moth","author":"Spear Robert J.","year":"1890"},{"key":"p_n_93","volume-title":"The South's Greatest Enemy? The Cotton Boll Weevil and Its Lost Revolution","author":"Giesen James","year":"1892"},{"key":"p_n_94","volume-title":"Ind.","author":"Sawyer Richard C.","year":"2002"},{"key":"p_n_95","volume-title":"A History of Applied Entomology (Somewhat Anecdotal) (Washington","author":"Howard L. O.","year":"1930"},{"key":"p_n_96","unstructured":"Essig, History of Entomology (cit. n. 1), pp.658-663; and"},{"key":"p_n_97","unstructured":"Arnold Mallis, American Entomologists (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1971), pp.79-86. Howard later became known for his martial and alarmist rhetoric about insects, rhetoric that presaged the postwar U.S. commitment to chemical control of insect pests. But for much of his early career he preached an applied ecological approach that was shared by many in the entomological community. Two of Howard's better-known books were The Insect Menace (New York: Century, 1931) and Fighting the Insects: The Story of an Entomologist, Telling of the Life and Experiences of the Writer (New York: Macmillan, 1933)"},{"key":"p_n_99","volume-title":"War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (New York: Cambridge Univ","author":"Russell Edmund","year":"2001"},{"key":"p_n_100","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/ae\/45.2.74"},{"key":"p_n_101","unstructured":"Sorenson makes this point in Brethren of the Net (cit. n. 27), pp.258-259. Philip Pauly has argued that USDA scientists were deeply divided over the biological implications of the nation's increasingly global and imperial posture, with Howard and theBureau of Entomologyassuming a nativist or restrictionist position for fear of exotic insect invasions, while Beverly Galloway, David Fairchild, and others within the Bureau of Plant Industry took a more \"cosmopolitan\" approach to plant and other biotic introductions and exchanges. In the case of Panama, these two approaches seem to have coexisted without much conflict, perhaps because the applied entomology practiced there was medical rather than agricultural. See"},{"key":"p_n_102","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/357402"},{"key":"p_n_103","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1515\/9780691186337","volume-title":"Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey (Princeton","author":"Pauly","year":"2000"},{"key":"p_n_105","volume-title":"The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (New York: Norton","author":"Porter Roy","year":"1997"},{"key":"p_n_106","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2587437"},{"key":"p_n_108","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab, The Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution,1912-1917). Information on the history of the project is from Vol.1, pp.2-6. Howard cites important Latin American figures in the introduction to his book Mosquitoes (cit. n. 32).Seealso","DOI":"10.5962\/bhl.title.54495"},{"key":"p_n_112","volume-title":"From Popular Medicine to Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, and Public Power in Costa Rica","author":"Palmer Steven","year":"1800"},{"key":"p_n_113","unstructured":"LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, pp.23-24. Howard was in touch with several people in Panama from the earliest days of the construction period. In early1906, he scolded Joseph LePrince for not sending along mosquito samples, making clear that his interests went well beyond the applied: \"But really, my dear Mr. LePrince, I have been so disappointed that you have not sent me a large collection of mosquitoes which you possibly might have captured, not in the towns but along the line of the Canal, in the woods or in the swamps.Yousee"},{"key":"p_n_114","volume-title":"L. O. Howard to Joseph LePrince","year":"1906"},{"key":"p_n_117","unstructured":"Mallis, American Entomologists (cit. n. 28), pp.326-327; and"},{"key":"p_n_119","volume-title":"comps","author":"Jackson F. E.","year":"1911"},{"key":"p_n_120","first-page":"48","volume":"41","author":"LaPointe Patricia M.","year":"1987","journal-title":"West Tennessee Historical Society Papers"},{"key":"p_n_121","first-page":"197","volume":"15","author":"Harrison","year":"1907","journal-title":"Journal of the New York Entomological Society"},{"key":"p_n_122","volume-title":"Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies (cit. n. 34)","volume":"1","author":"Howard"},{"key":"p_n_125","unstructured":"Busck, \"Report on a Trip for the Purpose of Studying the Mosquito Fauna of Panama,\" pp.53, 57. Mosquito taxonomy is complex and fluid. Species names have changed over time with new interpretations of what constitutes a distinct species, and systematists are increasingly uncomfortable with rigid species definitions, now often talking about species complexes and Iumping together all sorts of slight variations. Because of these complexities, I have chosen to use the species names assigned by the scientists I am examining, noting the changes over the time period I examine but not divergences with present understanding."},{"key":"p_n_127","first-page":"95","volume":"54","author":"Chaves-Carballo Enrique","year":"1980","journal-title":"Bull. Hist. Med."},{"key":"p_n_128","first-page":"462","volume-title":"Greatest Benefit to Mankind (cit. n. 30)","author":"Porter Roy"},{"key":"p_n_129","first-page":"21","volume-title":"Disease, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion, ed. Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis","author":"Worboys Michael","year":"1988"},{"key":"p_n_130","volume-title":"Ancon Hospital","author":"Samuel","year":"1908"},{"key":"p_n_135","unstructured":"Samuel T. Darling, Studies in Relation to Malaria (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,1910), pp.13-23. Seealso"},{"key":"p_n_136","volume-title":"Malaria in Panama (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press","author":"Simmons James Stevens","year":"1939"},{"key":"p_n_138","unstructured":"LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, p.51."},{"key":"p_n_140","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/jee\/5.2.131"},{"key":"p_n_141","unstructured":"LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, p.64. On the distribution of Anopheles see, e.g."},{"key":"p_n_142","volume-title":"Journal of the","author":"LePrince J. A.","year":"1908"},{"key":"p_n_143","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","volume-title":"Some Problems of Mosquito Control in the Tropics","author":"Jennings","DOI":"10.1093\/jee\/5.2.131"},{"key":"p_n_144","unstructured":"LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, p.39. After serving in Panama, Orenstein moved to South Africa, where he spent most of the rest of his long life (he died in 1972) working to improve public health, with a particular focus on the respiratory diseases that plagued the mining industry. See"},{"key":"p_n_145","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0035-9203(72)90114-9"},{"key":"p_n_146","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0021853700033351"},{"key":"p_n_148","unstructured":"These details are from LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, particularlypp.43-78. Margaret Humphreys documents similar problems in the U.S. South as hydropower lakes filled and malarial rates increased there in the early twentieth century.See"},{"key":"p_n_149","unstructured":"Humphreys, Malaria (cit. n. 21), pp.88-92."},{"key":"p_n_150","unstructured":"LePrince and Orenstein, Mosquito Control in Panama, pp.71-72."},{"key":"p_n_154","volume-title":"Isthmian Canal Commission [George Goethals]","year":"1908"},{"key":"p_n_157","volume-title":"Report of the Department of Sanitation of the Isthmian Canal Commission for the Year 1913 (Washington","author":"Gorgas W. C.","year":"1914"},{"key":"p_n_160","volume-title":"The Canal, the Country, and the People (New York: Macmillan","author":"Edwards Albert","year":"1913"},{"key":"p_n_161","unstructured":"Gorgas, Report of the Department of Sanitation of the Isthmian Canal Commission for the Year 1913 (cit. n. 57), p.6."}],"container-title":["Isis"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"http:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/pdf\/10.1086\/529265","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,21]],"date-time":"2024-02-21T05:35:50Z","timestamp":1708493750000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/10.1086\/529265"}},"subtitle":["Entomological Workers and Environmental Change during the Construction of the Panama Canal"],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2007,12]]},"references-count":115,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2007,12]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1086\/529265"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1086\/529265","relation":{},"ISSN":["0021-1753","1545-6994"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0021-1753","type":"print"},{"value":"1545-6994","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2007,12]]}}}