The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-12-27

on as resolutely as that started a few
years ago against the ubiquitous mos
! quito. There are still a few medical
men who think that too much has been
made Of the germ theory of disease.
The facts are Overwhelmingly against
these skeptics; but the fighters of
microbes and bacteria are beginning
to realize that they should not contine
] their attacks to the microscopic or
| ganisms, but must also demolish the
| visible insects and other carriers OF
disease. There is good reason for the
belief that smallpox, typhus, the
! plague, and other deadly maladies are
! largely spread by fleas, rats, and other
domestic parasites and vermin, whose
| systematic determination would there
fore mean a large decrease in human
mortality the world over.
In our own country and In Europe
the darkest blot on the good name of
the sanitarians is the wide prevalence
of typhoid fever and the shocking NOR
! tality among infants. The waste Of
| child-life is largely due to Overcrowd-
ing. want of fresh air, improper meth
JUS VI lCtullEs BdiChNal
| perance; but these factors are mostly
in uninterrupted operation throughout
the year and do not account for the
sudden increase in mortality during
! the months which are consecrated to
the fly. In the Journal of the Royal
Sanitary Institute an English medical
| officer of health, DIR. J. II. c. Nash.
expresses his conviction that the
musca domestica is chiefly RESPONSE
bic for this increase. Milk is one of
the favorlte foods of flies, and the milk
| in our houses, especially in the homes
of the poor, is constantly exposed 10
| their visits. Even when they 90 not
resort to their favorite method of com
mitting suicide, they contaminate the
! milk with the noxious matter clinging
to their feet; and thus the germs of
disease find a new and favorable me-
dium for multiplication.
DR.. Nash takes the position that milk
is even more liable to pollution after
than before delivery to the purchaser.
| This may be true, and, If so, it is a
very important point in sanitation. At
the same time, his convictions (which
are based on observations made at
Southend as to the coincidence of in
! fantile diarrhoea with the number of
fiies) raise the question as to whether
sufficient attention is paid to flies at
the dairles where the cows are housed
and the milk is stored. All milkmen
keep horses, and DR.. L. o. Howard has
shown that most of the house flies
breed in horse dung. This furnishes
the key to the remedy, infinitely
simpler than in the case of mosquitoes.
1t would be well to compel farmers and
others to take measures to keep the
flies from the manure pits. which is
quite easy. That would not only re
duce infant mortality, but decrease
the number of typhoid cases.
! In view of what has been said and
what is known of the filthy habits of
flies, 1t is not surprising that so many
city dwellers, safe at home, should
come from an outing in the country
smitten with typhoid. Heretofore
tainted wells have been held response
BILE for these cases, but in all proba-
bility flies are very frequently the cul-
prits. This probability is largely in
creased by the sad experiences of our
army in the summer of 1S9S 1t was
shown abundantly at that time that
the most careful system Of water sup
! ply is unsatisfactory If there is sewage
and If there are flies about to pollute
the food and drink. Surgeon-General
Sternberg knew of this danger. AS
| rIxy nil IN, +hot l.
a circular in which he referred to 1t.
His instructions were, however. ig-
nored, with the result that over 81
per cent. of the soldiers In the encamp-
ments that summer had typhoid and
! over 80 per cent. of the deaths dur
ing that year We're from this one
| cause.
That the Surgeon-G Generals warning
against flies as carriers of enteric
fever germs should have been disre-
! garded, at such q cost of life, will not
seem so very surprising to those who
know how slowly, in some cases, great
and important discoveries make their
J way to general recognition. Apparent
/ ly, the English Surgeon Gall
wey has never heard of flies as car
/ riers of disease, for in recent letter
| to the London Times he attributed the
typhoid at Bloemfontein to the "grime,
/ dust, dirt of war, which harbor the
bacilli on the human being, on his
clothes. on his bedding, on his food,
while the overerowding of tents and
grounds spreads the disease by con-
tact and by lowering vitality" The
CRIME and dust and dirt and over
crowding of war exist, however, at all
times, while the multiplication OF ty-
phoid cases comedies with fy-time.
1t is the same with cholera, which dis
appears when flies disappear. A
French man of science, Professor
Chantemesse, has recently demonstrate
ed the role played by flies In the dis
semination of the germs of that dis
ease. Fortunately, as his experiments
proved. the cholera germs in flies lose
their virulence after forty eight hours.
Can 1t be that the Philistines had an
inkllng of great truth when they
built temple for the worship of
Beelzebub, the destroyer of flies? Mod
ern experience certainly points to the
conclusion that the fly is the most
dangerous OF all animals--more so even
tnan the deadly mOgouito III Is So cor.