Los Angeles herald., 1908-06-20

era, typhoid fever, dysentery and tu-
berculosis. Bred in the filth of barn
yards and city dumps, the house fly
lives up to its greatest possibilities as
a dissemination Of filth and disease. On
its fuzzy, hairy little legs 1t can carry
1000 bacteria that 1t drops in an In
different and careless way into the
nearest milk pitcher on the most con-
venient marble table or the most at
tractive confectionery stand. It is
never a direct and intentional malefac-
tor, for 1t does not bite and infect in
that way; 1t merely trails through the
filth that 1t loves and let's the gath
cred bacilli fall of on any surface that
1t passes over. These bacteria 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 car
ried in the alimentary canal of the fly
and spread the contagion many miles
from the original source, a fact that
Chicago woman has established after
careful work in her laboratory.
1t was only in 1904, scarcely four
years ago. that the charge of criminal
carelessness was first preferred against
the house fly. UP to that time and
even now, I'm 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 d.
rectly responsible for some twenty or
thirty thousand deaths In this country
each year. So, war was decis ed.
1t is to be hard and bitter war, for
the house fly can reproduce its species
with. rapidity and in numbers that
paralyze the modern statistician. DR..
Packard a short while ago put one nv
In a bottle and kept II there for four
teen hours. In that time it laid 100
eggs, almost ten for every hour. AS It
takes only from eight to twenty-four
hours to hatch the eggs and fly is ma
ture and ready to reproduce its kind
In ten or fourteen days from the time
the egg Is laid, 1t may be seen that even
one fly in a given summer can do much
toward increasing the death roll OF a
community, and incidentally people its
world with uncountible millions of
pests within a year.
The crusade against flies has been so
far confined to the cities, and to very
few of these. In the country and rural
districts where there is most typhoid
and where the facilities for fly breeding
are unlimited, the death rate from ty-
phoid is higher There are nearly three
times as many cases of typhoid in the
country as there are in the city, and 1t
Is noticeable that the city rate always
goes up highest in September, when the
people who had spent the summers In
the country turn cityward again. bring
ing the germs of typhoid ready for the
fly to distribute when the disease has
developed. The death rate is lower in
no ri xuh ma A.
ling Of the disease prevents its spread.
The Indiana state board of health re-
Gently began a 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
year ago recognized the danger of
contamination from flies In typhoid
cases and issued instructive circulars
making special point of the fact that
food must be kept isolated from flies.
The national government has evidenced
a greater interest In the control of pre-
ventable diseases by considering bill
that will allow the United States hos
pital and marine service greater latitude
In handling contagious diseases, and
providing for co-operati ton with state,
territorial, district and municipal au-
thorities In this work. When 1t is
known that insects of various kinds dis
seminate the germs of leprosy. cholera,
dysentery, elephantiasis, filariasis, an
thrax, trachoma, typhus, cancer. tuber-
culosis and typhoid, the need of ma
tional and interstate cooperation is
keenly evident.
Chicago has begun an educational
campaign on large scale. New York
has been working with will and in
domitable courage ever since one of the
CITY bacteriologists intercepted a fly on