Major La Garde was superintending the unloading of the ship. One of these six commissioners happened to be passing at this particular time, and he was very much impressed by what he saw. Stepping up to Major La Garde, he said: “Doctor, why do you bring six caskets of so much better kind and quality than the ordinary coffin?” Major La Garde promptly replied: “Mr. Commissioner, you know that Commissioner Blank is not on the Isthmus, and that only six commissioners are down here.” The inference was so obvious that the Commissioner is said to have returned home and to have taken to his bed at once. I am glad to say, however, that none of the Commission ever had any use for those caskets. CHAPTER XVII MEDICAL AND SURGICAL SERVICE OF ANCON HOSPITAL The medical and surgical service of Ancon Hospital rapidly developed so as to win the confidence of the civil population all around. Not only did patients come to us from the Zone and the Republic of Panama, but patients also applied for admission, and many of them, from the west coast as far south as Chili, and as far north as Mexico. Many hundreds of people who formerly went to Europe and the United States for surgical care and treatment, now go to the Ancon Hospital. The charges for this treatment are so arranged that it costs the Commission nothing, but is actually a source of considerable profit. Hundreds of patients who can never hope to have means enough to go to Europe or the United States for medical or surgical relief, are able to go to Ancon and pay the very moderate charges there. This is another item of peculiar charge on the Isthmus. If it costs $30,000 a year to care for these patients, in our accounts this $30,000 is charged to sanitation, but the $50,000 which the Commission receives for these patients is not credited to sanitation, but to construction and engineering. An eye department was also established at Ancon by Major Theodore C. Lyster, of the United States Army, and was equipped with all modern appliances for eye, ear, nose and throat work. This department developed along the same lines as did the surgical work of the hospital, and was soon attracting patients from all the west coast north and south of us.