The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-12
Every lyphe!d Fever Death Is a Useless Death" Says a
 Prominent Physician
HOUSE FLY IS KILLING
 THOUSANDS EVERY YEAR
And the House Fly Can Breed In No Place Except Horse Stables-Need For an Aroused Public
 Sentiment.

The public in Birmingham has never fully understood the great importance of spring cleaning. or the life-saving value of cleanliness This has been made plain by a statement of facts which every householder can understand by a prom inent member of the Jefferson County Medical society, whose modesty prompts the request that his name be withheld. He writes
 Anent your editorial of yesterday morn- ing, entitled Our Spring Cleaning 1 would like to say word in the impor tance of scientific accuracy when you newspaper gentlemen write upon hygienic matters
 Our average responsible citizen or house. holder has a much more nquiring mind that he is usually given credit for, and when you write things for his consider ation you will usually find, I think, that he is interested less in vague general sermons on the hazy elements of dogma, disease or duty than he will be in the simple statement of one scientific fact that he can see at once has a practical bearing and leads his mind to the applica- tion of it.
 The average citizen has largely lost in- terest in the oft-printed statement that flies carry disease and that filth breeds flies, or, at least, he is in danger of losing interest in it and will fail to see the im- portance of these facts unless we par ticularize to the point of giving his reason q grasp of the matter.
 Should Be Told the Cause.
 He has heard every year now for a long time that 1t is a good thing to cut the weeds on a vacant lot, but no one has ever told him why? It is mere dogma to him. To him the slogan, nth breeds disease and the weeds conceal the filth, means little more to him than his belief that the thirteenth of the month Is un- lucky. Instead of or rather supplement- ing the reminder to clean up let us tell him that he ought to cut the weeds be- cause they conceal old cans or fragments of bottles that will hold rain water; that in the shade of the weeds water will re main in these receptacles eight or 10 days, or long enough to raise a brood of mos Quitoes, indeed, that the chances are these breemng places will contain water all the time We now tell him that one kind of mosquito is. the carrier of yellow fever, but even though it is present in great numbers 1t cannot cause the fever until it has been infected by sucking the blood of Q yellow fever patient The same ap- plies to the mosquito that carries the malaria parasite. The common house mosquito breeds in the same way, and while he has not been convicted of carry ing any special disease, he may be at any time, besides which he Is & pest to be abated. Weeds may conceal a dead rat, cat or chicken, but there Is no indication that this fact ever caused sickness of any kind. We may tell the householder, therefore, in terms positive enough to command his interest, that so far as our Knowledge extends at present, the weeds on the lot next door or in his yard will increase his stock of mosquitoes, aud for that reason alone should be cut. This is concise and he can remember and understand the importance. He should be told also that he should not have rain barrel at the corner of the house and raise his own mosquitoes, nor vines on the front porch to harbor and feed them. He should be told that the malaria mosquito is very common about Birmingham and are all infected with the germ.
 Fly as Filth Carrier.
 While we have convicted two varities of mosquitoes of being the special carriers of malaria and yellow fever, respectively, we have also learned that the common house fly can carry any disease where he can get his legs spiled with the filth that supports the germs. In hospital where hies are allowed to exist they may carry erysipelas or other dangerous germs from an infected patient to one whose fresh cut wound is clean and sweet.
 It is very probable that he can carry smallpox, measles and the like, but we know positively that he can and does carry the typhoid germ all the time and physicians are beginning of late to concede (what few of us advanced several years ago) that there is a direct relationship between the fly season and the prevalence of typhoid. Cru city health officer Dr. Hardness, has told me that the longer the flies last in the fall the longer the fever lasts, and some seasons they both last through the winter. However, 1t is not my intention to burden you with a medical paper. It is only necessary for the family physician to show the house. holder positively that flies do cause the