The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1910-04-27
THE OPEN SEASON FOR FLIES
MILLIONS CAN BE KILLED BY
ONE SWAT IF DONE IN TIME.
Psychologists and Doctors Are Send
ing Out Passionate Pleas to
Stay and SIay.

~NNNAOAANNSC
Stay and Stay.
The open season for flies is now
on, and physicians and bacteriolo.
gists are sending out passionate
pleas to housewives all over the civ
ilized globe to STAY and Stay.
The sport in this case is not so
much the thing; truth to tell, the
deliberate killing of flies is what the
small boy once described as "dinky
work" But the scientists explain,
with all the convincing force of ge-
ometrical progression, that every
lone and solitary specimen of the
common house fly that is allowed to
run wild now will, barring accidents,
be responsible for more than mil
lion and a half of its tribe before
the end of June.
Probably only bald-headed men
will be willing to take these figures
literally, but there remains the grand
and solemn fact that if you wait I'M
til August to kill fly you will have
the blood of only one miserable in
sect on your hands; but if you STAY
one in April, thus preventing it from
breeding, you get regular Bwana.
Tumbo of bag, which only the most
absurd modesty need forbid you from
reckoning potentially in hundreds of
thousands.
Considering the infection-carrying
habits of the familiar pest the sci
entists are anxious that the public
at large should understand the gem
esis of flies and set about the task
of their suppression through the
summer months in an intelligent
way.
House flies survive the winter in
the person of sturdy female individ-
uals, who hibernate from about Oc-
tober to April in the most secluded
corners they can find. AS soon as
the warm weather comes they creep
out and proceed to lay their eggs,
an average setting" being about
1870. These eggs take about three
weeks to develop into the perfect
adult insect, and simple little sum
in arithmetic shows that, giving one
ambitious female fly a fair start this
morning, she may hope for prog
eny of 1,72S,000 by the morning of
June 18th. OF course, the fly in this
instance counts on every egg in every
setting surviving the struggle for ex-
istence; but even making allowances
for accidents it is easy to see what
trouble the man who spares the fly
that hovers over his breakfast table
this morning is laying up for himself
two or three months hence.
Health experts lay directly on the
flies the responsibility for the spread
of diphtheria, consumption and en-
teric fevers. How many young chill
dren have died as result of drink
/ ing fy-infected milk is something no
one can estimate with any approach
to accuracy. A recent experiment
has shown that bowl of milk ex-
posed to flies for "a hours contained
| 100000 bacteria per cubic centime-
ter, as against less than tenth of
that number where the milk was
reasonably protected. Examined I'M
der a microscope one fly of only or
binary physique has been found to
contain on it's body 1,222,750 differ
ent bacteria; and after serving as a
bath for two or three other flies wa
ter that previously was absolutely
pure was found to contain no fewer
than 100000 germs. So the cry
goes forth, 'To arms, We house
wives, and exc, We little boys and
girls!" One fly fattened on the wall
/ is better than a thousand in the
butter.