Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1910-12-30
SIX MILLION GERMS PER FLY.
One of Natures Masterpieces Fo
ScreaGnq Fatal Diseases.


Regarded as a contrivance for dis
Selninatins the germs OF fatal diseases
the ny is one of natures master
pit. cs \ fairly large bacterium is as
N - smatier than fly than a fly is
smaller than an elephant. The mi
cru"es Of many of our ordinary con
tagirls disorders are thOusanC
til ~ more minute than this. The
'pIue%. hairs, folds, cavities and pro
ieat.r!i5 innumerable for microbes to
cling 70. il addition, each Of it's six
iitt!e t"et has the sticky pad which we
used 20 call sucker, adhesive enough
10 told tie fly on window pane, and
therefore Just the thing for picAing up
germs by the hundred. One may well
credis reports of single fly. filthy
rom ! sWiil barrel and loaded With
jSG 600 bacteria of one species alone.
Mo'.o?er, the fly, living on infected
food, lakes the microbes into its own
digestive tract, carries them about for
days. and deposits them by thousands
in the "ny-specks.' There, Tor ex-
ample. bacillus tuberculosis may life
tor two weeks.
1t would be bad enough il the fly
merely trawiad about in the sputum of
A tube; culosis patient Or the dejecta
Of a case OF typhoid, and then simply
infected the food on the way to their
mouths. il does worse than this; it
starts culture OF the deadly germs
n the FOOD which we eat tomorrow, and
by ;he time tomorrow arrives the sin
gle inicrobe has become a thousand.
Here Is a sample of class Of facts
which may we'll give pater familias
pause. At one Of the Connecticut Ag-
ricultural Experiment Stations, by way
If finding out how many bacteria a fly
can transfer to milk jar, they tried
shaking up flies in sterilized water and
estimating the NUMBERS washed off.
The record number was 100000
rom Is individuals, or more than g.
100000 apiece.
Almost overnight, We are beginning
% realize where the fly is born and
bred, and where his travels take him,
and what Is it Ae washes off into the
milk. Certain facts are coming to light
hat are calculated to make the house
holder sit up and take notice Breast
ed babies, for instance, are exposed
0 dangers through air and water, but
lot through their food, and they die,
1t the worst, third faster during fly
ime Bottle babies die three and
our times faster.
But, after all, one does not need sta
istics to make them suspicious OF the
~, for even such painstaking studies
Is that OF Daniel D. Jackson, Of New
York city, who by means of fly-traps
placed in various places, showed a re-
narkably close coincidence between
he prevalence Of flies and the onset
'atal cases of typhoid fever. The con-
'incing evidence is that flies have
been caught with the goods.
1t is all old device, almost as old as
he science OF bacteriology, to let fly
crawl about on a steriilzed plate Of
lutritive gelatin such as is commonly
employed for growing cultures OF BAG
eria. At first there is no sign; but,
after few hours in tue incubator the
Insects track on the gelatin is out.
ined in fiourishing colonies of mi
,robes. Virtually every time the fly
aas put down one of his six feet, he
has planted at least one germ. A
march of one inch results In hundred
vigorous cultures.
1t is pretty clean fly that does not
oear 1000 germs. a fairly dirty one
will carry $4,000. A fly just back from
the swill-pail or pig-pen, at the height
If the season for flies and germs, car
lies a load approaching the record
number in a drop of city milk-and
his is well into the millions.-Mc-
Cures Magazine.