The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1905-06-22
TIE HOUSE Fly SHOWN Up.
ContamInates Everything II Touches
with Its Feet.

Il
with Its Feet.
A proper housewife hates a fly as the
devil hates holy water. The compar-
ison is really unjust to the housewife.
Instinctiyely she knows more about
the common fly than Mr.. William Ly-
man Underwood, lecturerin the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, who
has written a pamphlet on the insect |
which Is a 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 evi- |
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 cntdoors
as in the house, got his deserts.
'"The house fly (Musca domestica),"
says Mr.. Underwood, ''is 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
soiling and communicating everything
that 1t touches with its filthy feet"
An unbidden guest that is treated Ike
the prodigal son, to the fatted 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 1t 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 1t
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 a microscope, had,
however, been planted there by the
hy's feet and tongue. Twelve hours
later, when this photograph was taken,
the dish of jelly having been kept In
| the meantime in warm place, the
groups Of bacteria could easily be seen
with the naked eye, just as the camera
| has here reproduced them. During this
time the germs had multiplied many
thousand times. Each mass now rep
resented a living colony, or, as 1t 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 as he walked along
can be plainly made out. and midway
between the fy's tracks in several
places will be seen number OF small,
rounded spots or colonies. These came
from the germs carried and planted by
the fy's tongue, and they show the
different places where the insect
paused to feed as it walked along
The population Of one Of these colo.
nies was counted, and forty-six mill
ion (46,OO0,000) germs were found to be
present in single spot. They had
Of course, multiplied many times after
they were planted on the jelly by the
hy's tongue"
1t is hardly necessary for Mr.. Un
derwood to add that sit is most i'm
portion that flies should be kept away
from all food supplies" A perusal o.
his pamphlet will make the insect Sc
odious that no one will want to ea'
without some form of fly insurance. l
is a comfort. however. to be told b,
the author that ''It must not be in
ferred that flies always carry tn
germs of dysentery and tropical feve
upon their feet" If they did, how
long could the human race hold it
own against flies that propagate 49,
100000 microbes apiece? Why. Dr
L. O. Howard, the Government en-
tomologist. once experimental witt
23,0S7 flies to see how microbic the.
were. Theme is solace in such figures
Sun.