The Grit-advocate., 1903-12-04
THE HOUSE FLY SHOWN UP.
COntaminates Everything 1t Touches
With lis Eeei.

with Its Feet.
A proper housewife hates Il fly rs the
devil hates holy water. The compar-
ison is really unjust to the housewife.
Instinctiveiy she knows more about
the common fly than Mr.. William Ly-
man Underwood. lecturer in the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology. who
has written n pamphlet on the insect
which is Il horrible warning. Any good
woman who has cooked. and baked and
set the table will find the house fly
guilty on any count in Mr.. Under
woods indictment without the evil
dence. which, however. we shall set
forth for the information of the sterner
sex. which is sufficiently impressed
with the iniquity of the mosquito. but
makes light of flies. Too long has
the burden of every wasting and dead
ly fever been laid on the narrow shOul-
ders Of the mosquito, and the female
variety at that. 1t is time the fly.
rather weakly called the house fly,
for he is as much at home outdoors
as in the house. got his deserts
''The house fly (Musca homestead"
says Mr.. Underwood. lis particularly
filthy. Our domestic animals. the dog
and cat, though far from clean in all
their habits we like to have about us,
but we keep them in their proper
places. The house fly. on the other
hand. is generally tolerated every
where. 1t crawls over hands and faces,
its gets into milk, it walks over sugar
and salt, over bread and cake, often
that it touches with its filthy feet"
An unbidden guest that is treated like
the prodigal son. to the fattcd calf
or to anything else the table grOans
under The house fly has only six
feet and one tongue, but Mr.. Under
wood has proved that on feet and
tongue it may harbor thousands of mi
crobes. A photograph of the foot
prints Of a fly on a loaf of jelly illus
trates his text Its hunger satisfied"
says the author, sit flew away. leav-
ing no visible sign to show that it
had ever been there; the jelly looked
as clean and pure as ever. Countless
numbers Of germs, too small to be seen
save by the aid of microscope. had,
however, been planted there by the
tly's feet and tongue. Twelve hours
later, when tbs photograph was taken.
the dish of jelly having Deen kept in
the meantime in warm place, the
groups of bacteria could easily be seen
with the naked eye. lust as the camera
ha ami iS
time the germs had multiplied many
thousand times. Each mass now rep
resented a living colony, or. as it were.
city of germs, the smallest spot
which can be seen on the plate con-
tanning many millions of them. The
tracks of the fly rs he walked along
can be plainly made out, and midway
between the fy's tracks i'll several
places will be seen number OF small,
rounded spots or colonies. These came
from the germs carried and planted by
the flys tongue, and they show the
different places where the insect
paused to feed as 1T walked along.
The population of one of these colo
MES was counted, and fortysiX mill
lOll NtO,OOO,oVvJ SCl NNit 1viHu W w
present in Il single spot. They had.
of course, multiplied many times after
they We're planted on the jelly by the
fly's tongue"
1t is hardly necessary for Mr.. un-
derwOod to add that ''it is most i'm
portion that flies should be kept away
from all food supplies" A perusal Of
his pamphlet will make the insect so
odious that no one will want to eat
without some form of fly insurance. 1t
is comfort. however, to be told by
the author that "It must not be in
ferred that flies always carry the
germs Of dysentery and tropical fever
upon their feet" If they did, how
long could the human race hold its
own against flies that propagate 4G,-
100000 microbes apiece? Why, Dr.
L. o. Howard, the Government en-
tomologist, once experimental with
23,OS7 flies to see how microbic they
were. There is solace in such figures.
Sun,