Just after New Year's Day 1872, a ship docked on a dock on the east coast of Panama. A number of people in light gray overalls alighted from the boat, and on the chest of their overalls were embroidered a yellow and black umbrella. Locals recognize this as the symbol of the Panama Canal Company's immunization water supply department. When there was a major outbreak of yellow fever among Japanese workers, it was these people who were in charge of everything in the workers' camps. Now that the people with such signs have returned to Panama from scratch, it seems that the development of the canal is really about to start again.

From the moment the ship docked, more ships continued to arrive. More people, as well as supplies, were brought ashore. Then the workers began to arrive one after another. Unlike last time, this time these workers are mainly white.

Originally, Scrooge still wanted to use Japanese workers, or simply Chinese workers. Because both Japanese and Chinese workers are cheaper to use than whites, even the cheapest Irish whites. And this time, with DDT, there should be no mass casualties. So even if it is to use Chinese laborers, Scrooge thinks that there will be no big problems.

However, things turned out a bit unexpectedly. In Japan, after the Restoration government came to power, it publicized the death of a large number of Japanese workers in the Panama Canal as important evidence of the shogunate's traitorous crimes. As for China, it was not difficult to recruit some workers. Even the operation is almost the same, but I don't know how to do it, there were suddenly some political changes in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and a group of so-called "Qingliu" took advantage of this matter to attack the Westernists and betray the country, and then, well, at least for a short time, the Chinese workers could not be counted on. Of course, the only people left who could use it were the Irish and the blacks.

Unlike last time, it was not the workers who entered the forest first, but the employees of the immunized water supply department and a small number of lumberjacks with axes and machetes to clear the way. What these people are trying to do is eradicate dangerous mosquitoes in the Panamanian rainforest before the workers start their work.

The climate in the rainforest region near the equator is very regular. Basically every day in the afternoon there is a heavy rain. In addition, the woodland is exceptionally dense, with all kinds of trees and rattans shading the sun, so the woodland is very humid and stuffy. Such an environment creates very favorable conditions for the growth of various insects, especially mosquitoes. Here, for 12 months a year, the heat necessary for mosquitoes to breed, as well as stagnant water, are everywhere. So in the rainforest, there is never a shortage of mosquitoes.

"Bart, you, don't pull your suit apart if you don't want to die!" Team Leader Coot yelled at Bart the Lumberjack. The mosquito control team wore special protective clothing that covered the whole body. This protective suit, made of thick canvas and covered with a thin layer of vulcanized rubber, can keep out any mosquitoes or other insects, and has been specially reinforced in the lower legs and feet, head, hands, and even the fangs of venomous snakes. Of course, this kind of protective clothing is not specifically designed for this project. Although it is advertised as such, in fact, it is a chemical protective suit designed for possible future chemical warfare.

This garment offers very good protection, but when it comes to comfort, it's a complete mess. In the already hot tropical rainforest, the temperature inside the airtight protective suit can easily exceed 40 degrees. And the lumberjacks who have to do relatively heavy labor are naturally even more miserable. It became a habit for lumberjacks to unzip up their protective clothing as soon as it was possible to breathe it.

"Captain, it's so hot, I'm going to faint!" Bart complained.

"Okay, okay, I'm not responsible for your death." "You're not a kid anymore, take care of yourself." Well, there's a big puddle here, Simlin, come and deal with it. ”

"Okay captain!" Simlin replied in a loud voice as he walked over with a sealed tin bucket. The barrel also has a black and yellow umbrella painted on it.

Simlin walked over to the puddle, which was small and looked like a small pool, but it wasn't deep, and it was knee-deep at its deepest. There were dead branches and leaves floating on the water, and with the little sunlight leaking from the top of the tree, you could see that the water was full of small insects moving one by one. Simlin recognized that this was the larvae of mosquitoes. He expertly unscrewed a small lid on the tin bucket and poured some milky liquid directly into the water.

Originally, the use of DDT should first be dissolved with an appropriate amount of water, and the amount of water used should be judged according to the amount of water. However, to do so would be a lot of trouble and a lot of extra effort. In the case of wearing such protective clothing that can heat people to death, and doing it little by little, it will be even hotter to death. And the above requirement for them is to ensure that all those mosquitoes are killed, as for how much DDT is used, just like the Lord doesn't care about the life and death of these mosquitoes, the above doesn't care how much DDT is used, anyway, this thing is cheap. Compared with the amount of DDT, the above pays more attention to the speed of doing these things.

Therefore, the following executors will naturally adopt the most comfortable and efficient method - see the puddle, go directly to the original solution, and it will dissolve by itself anyway. How much to pour, estimate casually, of course, it is better to have more to ensure the effect. Therefore, the general usage will exceed the standard by three or five times. Anyway, the above don't care. Neither the one above nor the Lord above.

The milky white liquid slowly melted in the water, and in order to ensure the effect, Simlin lifted the bucket and walked a few steps to the other side and poured some more. Then he was satisfied to see that centered on the location where he had poured the DDT stock solution, all the people who were still playing one bullet at a time no longer moved. There must still be a lot of children in the center of the puddle, but they don't last long, at most half an hour, and all the children in this puddle will die, and there will be no more insects or anything else growing here for a long time after that.

There were also two black men in the team who were in charge of carrying medicine barrels to spray DDT on the leaves along the road, which is said to have prepared tens of thousands of tons of DDT for the forest, and Mr. Scrooge even threatened to make the Panamanian rainforest no mosquitoes that dared to fight humans for decades to come. So everybody has to hurry up and use these DDTs.

Walked forward a little further. They dealt with several more large puddles as well as a real large pond. It was a depression in the rainforest, where the rain was so deep that the trees couldn't grow there. The sun shone unobstructed, stabbing the eyes of the team members, who were accustomed to the dim light of the rainforest. Regardless of the three-seven-twenty-one, Simlin simply put the rest of the original solution into it.

"I don't know if it's enough." Kurt looked at it and said, "The water here is deep enough, well, just pour all the original liquid and potion into it." Then we go back. ”

……

Every day, more than a dozen mosquito control teams will fight mosquitoes in front of them, clearing out a mosquito-free safe zone several kilometers wide and one kilometer deep. Legions of lumberjacks without protective clothing followed to cut down the rainforest along the route, followed by construction workers digging the river. The effect was so good that not to mention the mosquitoes, the lumberjacks who followed behind had never even seen any bugs alive. Not only the threat of mosquitoes has been removed, but also the threat of poisonous spiders, wasps, leeches, drought locusts, and all kinds of snakes has been solved. DDT is very reliable and efficient for this type of cold-blooded animal, and even the largest snake, the forest snake, cannot escape. On more than one occasion, the lumberjacks have found poisoned beetles, the largest of which weighed four hundred pounds, in a puddle or under a large tree, and in this forest, it was the undisputed king, and there was hardly any creature that could threaten a serpent like it except for time. Even crocodiles in the lake have to shy away from it, but when it swims through the water full of DDT, DDT, which is extremely toxic to cold-blooded animals, kills it in a short time.

The only crocodile that sometimes dares to compete with the forest snake is not much better, except for some crocodiles who live in very large lakes and have escaped the catastrophe, those crocodiles who have found a large pond to dominate the party, have also become victims of DDT. Of course, the situation of warm-blooded animals is much better, like jaguars or something, at least they are not directly poisoned. However, he was also shot and killed by the Blackwater members in charge of security. So when the loggers start cutting down these forests that have been growing for an unknown number of years. The forests were silent, except for the sound of one tree after another being cut down and the huge canopy smashing against the ground, no insects, no birds, no low roar of jaguars, and certainly no gags from bears and bears.

The effect of large-scale use of DDT in rainforests is very obvious. The yellow fever that once made people talk about tigers is gone. It's been more than two months since construction crews entered the rainforest on a large scale. At this time last time, most of the unfortunate people from Japan were left with the value of contributing to the progress of medicine, but now, there has not been a single case of yellow fever or malaria or other insect-borne disease among the Irish or the blacks.

"We can basically cheer that we have overcome the rainforest, that we have overcome the disease that has been entrenched there for so many years. From now on, there will be no more forbidden areas on the earth that are closed to humans. This is a victory for humanity and a victory for science. This is a small step for science, but it is a giant leap for humanity to overcome nature! In the talk show that followed, Scrooge said triumphantly.