The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-30
PERIL IN THE
COMMON FLY
The Many Diseases That Are
Due to the Fly's
Habits.

and intestinal diseases, the majority
OF which are spread by that ever ac.
tive pest, the common house fly. With
the fear of epidemics has come a con.
certed effort on the part of progressive
cities to exterminate the fly. There are
$50, 900 cases OF typhoid fever in the
United States every year, and ten pei
cent OF the cases are fatal. The fever
is spread through three routes-water
milk and flies. Water is responsible
for the greater number of cases, but
infected milk has its hundreds to ac-
count for, and flies many hundred more.
Last years Investigations in New York
City showed that there were $50 deaths
from typhoid and 1000 deaths from
other intestinal diseases that were
traceabIe directly to diseases spread
through the agency of flies.
Diseases of a distinctly unpleasant
nature are those which the fly spreads
best,-Asiatic cholera. typhoid fever,
dysentery, and tuberculosis. Bred in
the filth of barnyards and city dumps,
the house fly lives up to its greatest
and disease On it's fuzzy, hairy little
legs it can carry 100000 bacteria that
At drops in an Indifferent and careless
way into the nearest milk pitcher, on
the most convenient market table or
the most attractive confectionery stand.
1t is never a direct and intentional
malafactor. for it does not bite and in
feet in that way, it merely trails
through the filth that it loves and let's
the gathered bacilli fall off on any sur
face that ii passes over. These bact-
eria may live for Two weeks and so can
be carried long distances on the f1y's
legs, or, as they are indigestible, they
can be carried in the alimentary canal
of the fly and spread the contagion
many miles from the original source.
a fact that a Chicago woman has
established after careful work in her
laboratory.
1t was only in 1904, scarcely four
years ago, that the charge of criminal
was first preferred against
the house fly. Up to that time and
even now in many rural districts, it
was believed TO be a useful scavenger,
worthy and harmless member of the
insect world. Then the medicine men got
busy in their private and municipal
laboratories and among other valuable
things that they demonstrated to the
world was that the house fly was direct
ly responsible for some twenty or
thirty thousand deaths in this country
each year. So war was declared.
1t is to be a hard and bitter war, for
the house fly can reproduce it's species
with rapidity and in numbers that
paralyze the modern statistician. DR..
Packard a short while ago put one fly
in a bottle and kept it there for four
teen hours. In that time 1t laid 100
eggs, almost ten for every hour. AS it
takes only from eight to twenty-four
hours to hatch the eggs and a fly is
mature and ready to reproduce its
kind in ten or fourteen days from the
time the egg is laid. it may be seen
that even one fly in a given summer
can do much toward increasing the
death roll of a community, and in
people its world with I'M
countable millions of pests within a
year. =.
The crusade against flies has been
SO far confined to the cities, and to a
very few of these. In the country and
rural districts where there is most
typhoid and where the facilities for
fiy-breeding are unlimited. the death
rate from typhoid is higher. There
are nearly three times as many cases
of typhoid in the country as there are
in the city, and it is noticeable that the
city rate always goes up higher in
September when the people who had
spent the summers in the country turn
cityward again, bringing the germs of
typhoid ready for the fly to distribute
when the disease has developed The
death rate is lower in the city where
more intelligent handling of the disease
prevents its spread. The Indiana state
Board of Health recently began
vigorous campaign against the fly.
distributing educational literature and
encouraging a wider knowledge of the
danger lying in the tolerance of these
pests. Detroit over a years ago re-
cognized the danger of contamination
from flies in typhoid cases and issued
instructive circulars making especial
point of the fact that food must be
kept isolated from flies The national
government has evidenced a greater
interest in the control of preventable
diSedSeS DN considering Dill that will
allow the United States Hospital and
Marine Service greater latitude in
contagious diseases. and pro-
vfding for cooperation with state. ter
district and municipal author
tiles in this work. When it is known
that insects of various kinds dis
seminate the germs of leprosy. cholera.
iysentery. elephantiasis. fflariasfs. an
thraX. trachoma, typhus. cancer. tuber-
culosis and typhoid. the need Of nation
al and interstate cooperation is keen
ly evident
Chicago has begun an educational
on a large scale New York
has been working with a will and in
domitable courage ever since one of
the city psychologists intercepted q
fly on its way from stable to a milk
depot and discovered that a hundred
thousand bacilli were on its legs. and
that when these were left on a glass
plate in the laboratory by the impris-
oned fly. mass OF swarming. death
dealing bacilH sprang into being. each
capabi" of end1ngering a human life.
New York has found that infant NOR
tally is greatest in that city in fly
time. and health authorities are begin ]
nlng crusade that Will make fv
screens an ivnDaro two ,,.a,,--;.-- I, I