The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-24
THE INDICTMENT OF
 THE COMMON HOUSE FLY

At q meeting last year of the Califor- hia Public Health association, Dr. J. o. Cobb, surgeon, United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, at Los Angeles, presented the following real istie picture of the house fly as an agent of evil;
 Now, let me picture to you some of the habits of the fly, and then we shall see if it is unreasonable to believe that he Is an important factor in the spread of dis ease. Turn about you and see the swarms of flies upon decayng vegetable mat ter-in the garbage cans, on the manure piles, everywhere. Watch the files swarm ing upon the filth of the streets, such as sputum and spit and bones and decaying vegetables. Follow him further, and see him allghting upon the candy offered for sale by the street venders and on all the fruit at the stands, especially the grapes and dates. Don't tarry here too long, for you will be disgusted, and will cease to eat fruit favored with fly speclts; keep right on the quest after this insects hab- It's, and notice the bakery where you buy your bread and cakes and pies-fiies there to put on the finishing layer And the meats-have you observed how they are
 
 streets without protection, covered with flies. and then hung up in the shop where these same flies and others swarm upon them? Cooking this meat does not change the fact that this Is simply nasty There is no other word for 1t.
 Then after you have been in the butch CT shops, keep right on to the restaurant kitchens, and alleys back of them, espe- cially the cheap ones. I don't say you ever eat there, but If you ever have, you won't go there again if you will but make one visit to these kitchens. But there are others who must, perchance, eat there, and 1t is these whom we should protect, not alone from these filthy insects, but from the disease which they carry.
 And we must go Into the shops and homes of the poor-those unfortunates whose houses are not protected by screens to keep out flies. There you will indeed be disgustedl Flies everywhere! In the ohildren's mouths and noses; in the house, out of the house; on the food left there upon the tnble. which is never cleared; on the food left over, and which the childre neat at all times between meals; in the milk pitcher: in the soup; in the molasses; in and upon every con- ceivable thingl But at this point I feel that you are beginning to doubt. You are saying to yourselves that 1t Is true that the fly is filthy, but you are even now saying that the food Is cooked, and that the process will kill any bacteria that might have been planted by flies. Ahl but you forget and overlook the danger. It is granted that cooking will destroy all of these bacteria readily, but it is not here that the danger lies It is the food which has been cooked and upon which the fly afterwards alights that is the real danger, and the longer this food remains uneaten after this con tamination. the greater the probability that colony has grown. thereby in- creasing the dosage of infection. For you must see that in cholera, say, where the fly planted but few bacilli on potatoes or a bread pudding, or something left over from a meal a rapid growth would