Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1908-06-17

M mere sound of his irritating
"Buzz-buzz-zz" awakens at
once all of our most unchristian
feelings, while the touch OF his
tickling feet upon eur face or shining
crown stirs US to murderous fury. So
utterly out OF all proportion to any ap-
parent injury that he could infict upon
us is this feeling that we have really
been inclined 10 be ashamed of il and to
take ourselves to task for harboring such
vengeful feelings toward so tiny and
harmless a creature. 1t has become
point Of minor morals and of sanity pride
with us not merely TO refrain from killing
ny, but even TO rescue him tenderly from
milky or watery grave in cup or dish.
But now, in the fulness of time. comes
science to prove that our deadly enmity
was right after all and our sentimental
good-heartedness mistaken. Sanitary
science denounces the fly as one of the
ncs; important angels of the pestiIence
emu SpreauSrs of disease and demon ds its
eX{ermlnation. What is urged is. not that
ne should be killed, but prevented from
coming into existence at all.
Fortunately with the demand has como
tht discovery Of the means BY which Il
con!d he carried out to the letter Wbile
sanitarlans had for some decades bean
looking upon the fly with the eve of sus-
plcl0n as creature that lives and moves
aha Aas rs being and origin in dirt, and
only IN DIRT. the first convincing object
lessen that we had Of his real deadliness
was IA the ortgle ak Of typhoid among
our soldiers In rbe home camps during the
spanish American Var Her. lied or mr.
own soil, in q healthful climate. with
every resource Imaginable in the way Of
I9od supplies available in abundance.
thousands Il uuf boys in khaki. yearly
zen nmes as many as were killed in the
neid ana at the front during the entire
campaign.
amer the war was over a commission
o. medical experts was appointed to study
aHo report upon the cause. and which was
pFactlcdlIy unanimous in declaring that
ne principal agency in the spread Of this
olsgFaceIui pestIleuce-the greg test n ill
tary bl1hder of our arms in the last half
century was due to the plague Of flies
which sWarme4 in all camps not properly
ProIected' te9dinG upon discharges from
Garner cases, Whi,h were thrown ont into
the Iatrines or regulation trenches for
camp sanitation, and then promptly re-
turning 10 crawl over milk butter fruit
ana other food in the uuscreaned cooking
tents and upon unprotected mess tables.
l'ST to put the possibility of this form
Of carrying contagion beyond douht
flies were allowed to feed upon waste
materials .noculltsd with different kinds
OF bacteria, nd theu gelatine plates were
spread where they coulC alight upon them.
These plates were then taken and placed
In an incubator, and in from twenty-four
to forty-eight hours they developed a most
beautiful network of herringbopa and
polka dot patterns, foi med of colonies Of
bacteria, the seeds OF which had been de
posted by the feet Of the flthp hy The
ny is the original pattern" or RIBBON
landscape gardener.
This startled the bacteriological world.
and within the uext Eve years a score
OF similar Investigations were carried ont
on beth sides Of the Atlantic. always With
the same result--that wherever waste
material was exposed Containing the
germs either of simple putrefaction or Of
disease flies wouid sH arm ABOUT and on
and spread the c3uIagion TO everything
that fly could alight upon for from two
hundred to six hundred yards IL ali direc-
tons round about
Casual dies passing about in shops and
Kitchens. around garbage barrels, stable
yards. were caught at random and exam
ined and practically every one of them
discovered carried bacteria of some sort
upon his hairy legs and feet. aud a con
siderable number Of them carried germs
OF some OF our most dangerous diseases.
This is an old story now, and time and
again flies have been found carrying
germs Of tuher DIcsis picked up by them
from the sputlm. of typhoid, of diph-
iberia, Of blood poisoning. aud in The
Orient Of plague ana Of cholera. In short.
II there Is an filth or disease going the
7 mil 1r.E, IS tH1,gF
One of the most interesting of recent
demonstration of the deadly activities of
the fly was thar furnished by that admir-
able and public spirited body, the New
YORK Committee on the Pollution of State
Waters, of which Edward Hatch, Jr., is
chairman. having as his associates j. Pier
pout Morgan, Dr. \ bert Wander Yeer pr
Dauiel Il. jackson and johu Y. Culyer,
Last summer il made systematic udv
of the flies sWarming along the water -ront
OF lover New YORK especially at the points
near where sewers empty into ths river.
The results were really aupalliu! Not
Only We're flies caught in specie lily pre-
pared traps along the water ffoI found
10 be simply loaded with the germs OF
filth and disease lone of them having the
staggering bur q Of over 10000 bacteria
clustered over ms tiny BOD! 81, Ju, on oh
tanning from the Health Department Of
the city its reports OF the eases of deaths
from tyt. bold and other intestinal diseases,
particularly the 50 called summer diar-
rhoea" of children, il was found that these
cases formed twh;.e scattered more or less
ell over the civ most uUmistakabie belt
or zone all Ground rbe water f-ohr at the
lower end o. the city, covering iust about
the belt which the short flying hJ would
range over.
Further examination showed another
deadly parallel. and that was that the
number of these diseases increased step
By step with the increasing number Of
flies .hough Of course week or SO later,
and declined In the fall, when the plague
OF flies subsidized. As the dea hs from this
class Of diseases We're more than seven
thousand in the Borough Of Manhattan
last summer-and il would he safe 70 at
tribute half If these to the agency Of
flies it viii be seen what a deadly record
we have to keep with Musca domesiica.
kC{R MANS foes shall be they Of his
~ own household" is good science
as well as Scripture. The fly is
domestic animal. a household pet.
whether we are proud to acknowl-
edge him or not. With some Of our do
mestic animals it is a question whether
We adopted them into the family or they
adopted us iu,o ihtirs. There is DO doubt
shout the fly. He did the adopting with