Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-07-02
THE DEADLIEsT LIVING THING.
Either Man Must Kill the Fly or the
Fly Will Kill the Man.

fly will kill the man." The above SEN
tence printed In blazing red letters on
placards Is being used in many Ameri-
can towns and cities in the war
against the typhoid fly.
In 1900 more than $4,000 people In
this country died of typhoid fever.
Flies killed practically all of them.
Not any fanged. clawed, venomous
and stinging fly that came and went
4 mysteriously. The death dealers were
innocent looking little house flies that
swarm over manure heaps, alleys,
kitchen windows and milk crooks.
That same year about 1850 folks
| died of gunshot wounds. Railroads
killed $3.50 during that same twelve
months. Everyone knew that mur-
ders and railroad accidents were help
Ing to remove the population. Every
one knew that some man or woman in
the next block had the typhoid but 1t
didn't worry them. They were used
to typhoid. ...
A baby sat in a high chair pushed
| up close to a screenless window. He
| was bottle baby" The bottle had
| sterilized. Apparently the baby should
have been safe enough. A fly came up
| out Of the alley filth. 1t lit on the bot
tie and the hands Of the baby. Ten
days later little white coffin was car
ried out Of the house and placed In
snowy hearse drawn by milk-white
horses. Alas!
Flies help to keep the graveyards
fat, the grass in the graveyards green.
Here is typhoid as an instance. Peo-
pie used to watch the milk supply only
when they were trying to dodge ty-
phoid. There was a house upstream
from another where half q family lay
sick with this burning disorder. Their
milk supplies were from different
dairies.
There was no chance Of infected
sewerage, as water does not and will
not run uphill. The wind was blow
ing up the valley. No harm in that, as
germs do not ride on the wind to the
distance of a mile or more. Flies do.
Musca Domesticus (high- brow name
Of the f1y) took little saunter from
the polluted premises one morning,
was caught in the wind current and
landed in the upstream neighbor's
few days there was another typhoid
infected house in the valley.
Musca Domesticus Is about the dead
liest creature that crawls, swims or
flies. He Is in the same class with the
dog whose jaws drip hydrophobia. He
ranks with the timber rattler, who
carries cold death in his fiat head. He
Is as dangerous as a cocaine madden
ed negro with an automatic revolver.
You can crush him with a tap Of
the finger II you can catch him. but
he multiplies by the million, the bill
lion, the trillion and the quadrillion,
and every one Of these quadrillions
carries a load Of germs around on his
just the trouble. He Is so common
that he is looked upon as one of the
necessary evils Of summer.
Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and
Texas began fighting the house fly
months ago. Tennessee is Offering
gold medals to the champion fly mur-
derers of the state. Kansas was the
home Of the first statewide campaign
against the fly. New York city has
started in to keep down the summer
death rate among the children by wip-
ing out the breeding places Of the fly.
Two or three years ago L. o. How
ard, chief entomologist Of the United
States department Of agriculture. said:
1.-The insect we now call the house
fly should in the future be termed the
typhoid fly In order to call attention
to the danger Of allowing 1t to breed
unchecked"
The country took him at his word.
The term typhoid fly" has come into
general use and much Of the mystery
that once hung over the spread Of that
fever has been dispelled. Filth. flies
and fever became a sort Of unholy
trinity. :
The house fly Is the terror that
stalketh by MONDAY. He and his null
tiple feet dripping with germs are all
over the premises. He plants a few
germs In your bread. He buries them
in the butter on your table. Out in
the milk bottle he browns a few mil
lions of them, but they are hale and
healthy. He sows the seeds Of death
in and on everything that he touches.
Last March If you had killed the
first fly you saw you would have In
fact killed 5,000,000,000 Of these pests
of the community. They breed faster
than an adding machine can keep track
of the increase. Mathematicians have
spent weeks figuring how long 1t would
take for the fly tribe to literally inher-
1t the earth II they had no natural enc
mics. They discovered that the flies
would swamp humanity In less time
than 1t would take the mathematician
to figure out the exact date
We really ought to have started the
war Of determination last March. The
fly is abroad in the land now, terrible
as an army with banners, only he is
very quiet with all his deadliness. Kill
one now and you cut Off few million
flies from any chance OF life, but
there are already so many abroad that
what the one fly might have done
will hardly be missed.
The F1yless Age may come In the
future. The flies will pass out Of the
world along with the horse and the
stable. About ninety eight per cent
of all these pests are born in some
body's manure heap, alongside or In a
stable. The other two per cent come
out of the garbage piles and the refuse
heaps. Walk down an alley any hot
day and see for yourself. If the alley
Is unclean the swarms OF black and
green bellied flies will nearly choke
you.
Ten days after Mamma Fly has de-
posted her eggs in the manure heap
the filthy babies have progressed
through the worm stage and are try
lHB lHelT "lH6o. lhSS oiO
full members of the Ancient Order Of
Germ Distributors as soon as they are
able to make their wings work. Then
they begin sowing death, and 1t Is not
their fault If the seeds do not -four
ish.
They will be establishing chairs In
the medical colleges for the study Of
the fly next. 1t practically amounts
to that now. Following up the bril-
liant work done by Gorgas and others
in the fever zones where the fly and
the mosquito vanished, taking lot of
disease with them, local health boards
have been waking up and tackling the
fly.
Next year the fly war will begin
little earlier and last a little longer
than that of this season. The death
rate already sagging a little, will sag
more. Once flies were considered as
nuisance. Now they are known muir
derers of infants and slayers of strong
men.-St. Louis Republic.