The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-11-04

were afterwards deposited on food in
nearby kitchens TO which the flies had
been attracted.
I have here the result of an expert
ment which / tried in the laboratory a
few days ago. | caught a fly and made
it crawl over a surface covered with
germs. 1 then placed it under bell jar
with sterlized gelatin plate. After
buzzing around the jar for few minutes
1t settled down to the bottom and soon
alighted on the gelatin. / allowed it to
crawl hack and forth several times and
then set it free and carefully covered
the plate to prevent more germs from
getting in. The germs grew rapidly and
now cover most of the plate. repeated
the experiment, allowing the fly 10 crawl
only once across the plate. Here / have
an enlarged drawing of this second plate.
The tracks of the fly can be easily dis
tinguished As ! took great care TO pre-
vent other germs from getting on the
gelatin, the colonies were undoubtedly
started by the germs which chung to the
feet in it's first trip.
In real life the germs are carried from
| place to place much as they were in the
| laboratory The sick room Stops are
simply swarming with germs. The fly
crawling over these Stops gets the germs
on its feet. 1t then flies away perhaps
to some neighboring kitchen where the
germs are deposited on the food.
The methods of prevention are plain
First all the Stops of the sick room
should be thoroughly disinfected and
kept carefully covered until it is possible
to bury them or dispose Of them in some
other safe way. Above all, do not throw
the Stops on the surface of the ground
and let them lie there. This was done in
one case in near village this summer
and five serious cases of typhoid fever
resulted i'm the immediate neighborho0d,
all undoubtedly resulting from infection
by flies, which carried the germs from
the first house to the other Against the
adult fly we can do little other than put
| ting screens in the windows and this is
at the best unsatisfactory, but by
striking at the young of the fly we can
soon greatly reduce the numbers of this
pest. Flies, like most other insects, pass
through four stages of existence: the
egg, the larvaL the pupa and the adult
Most of us know the larVa Of the house
fly as the maggot of refuse piles and it
is at this stage we strike. The favorite
food of the larva is horse manure, and
therefore it is in the piles of horse
manure that the flies breed. All of the
horse manure about the stables should
be gathered together at least once
week and placed in a pit or vault. The
surface of each new lot added should be
literally sprlnkled with lime. If this
plan is carried out the flies will have no
chance to breed.
That malaria can be introduced into the
system only through the bite of ma
Iarial mosquito has been satisfactorily
proven The malaria is caused by
minute animal that lives in the red
corpuscles of the blood. 1t there grows
and develops and by division forms new
animals until at last it bursts the cor
puscles and discharges into the blood a
mass of spores ready to enter new cells
and commence a new growth. These
parasites are taken with the blood into
the stomach of the mosquito where they
produce a great number of spores. These
spores make their way to the salivary
glands of the insect where they mix with
the poison and with it are injected into
the system. As result of this injection
maIariaI symptoms soon appear. The
only ulOSlullO LlidI Ndl CdllS mo N'is9
ease belongs to the genus known as
Anopheles and is not very common.
AS in typhoid, the means of protection
consists in the destruction of the breed
ing places of the mosquito. The eggs
are laid on top of stagnant water and
form what we know as wiggle tails. In
campaign against them we must be
careful that no puddle or barrel Of water
escape us. We should carefully cover
our water tanks, cisterns and rain bar
rels All bog holes and small pools
should be drained off or filled in All
not drained shhouId have their surfaces
covered by a sheet of kerosene oil every
two weeks during the spring, summer
and autumn. Fishh introduced into the
pools or ponds will also destroy the
larvae These feed on the larvae and
allow few if any to reach maturity II
these measures be taken for even a single
summer the mosquitoes will be almost
exterminated in the vicinity and as they
do not migrate the effect will be felt for
long time.