Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-07-13
THE oEAoLiEsT LIVING THING.
Either Man Must Kill the Fly or the
Fly Will Will the Man.

Either man must kill the'fy or tine
fly will Kill the man" The above SEN
tence printed in blazing red letters on
>piacards is being used in many AIneri=
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. venomou8
and singing fly that came and went
mysteriousIy. The death dealers were
innocent looking like house fiiss that
swarm over manure heaps. alleys.
kitchen windows and milk crooks.
That same year about 1000 folks died
os eunshot wounds. Railroads killed g.
$50 during that same twelve months
Everyone knew that murders and rail-
road accidents We're helping TO remove
the population Everyone knew that
some man or woman in the next block
had the typhoid. but it didn't worry
them. They were used to typhoid
baby sat- in a high-ellair pushed
up close to a screenless window. lie
was a bottle baby The bottle had
been scalded and the milk had been
sterilized Apparently the baby shonid
have heen safe enough. A fly came up
out of the alley filth. IL lit on the bot
tie and tho hands of the baby. Ten
DAYS later a little white coffin was
carried out of the house and placed in
snowy hearse drawn by milk-Whte
horses. Alas
Flies help 10 keep the graveyards fat,
the, grass In the gravcyards green. Here
is typhoid as an instance. People used
to watch the milk supply only when
they were trying to dodge typhoid.
There was a house upstream from an
other where half family lay sick with
this burning disorder Their milk sup
plies were from different dairies.
There was no chance of infected sew
age. as water does not and win not run
uphill. The wind was blowing up the
valley. No harm in that, as germs
do not ride on the wind TO the distance
OF mile or more. Flies do. Musca Do
mesticus thigh- brow name of the tiy>
took little saunter from the polluted
premises one morning, was caught in
the wind current and landed in the up
stream neighbor's open milk bottle be-
fore noon. IN n few days there was
another typhoid infected house in the
valley.
Musca Domesticus is about the dead
lest creature that crawls, sWims or
flies. He is in the same class with the
dog whose jaws drip hydrophobia. He
ranks with the timber RATHER, Who car
ries cold death in his fiat head. He is
| as dangerous rs a cocaine maddened
| negro with an automatic revolver.
| You can crush him with tap of the
| finger if you can catch him. but he
multiplies by the million. the billion,
the trilIion and the dpadriliion. and
| every one of these quadrillions carries
n load of germs around on his hairy
glairy body Catching him is just the
| trouble He is so common that he is
looked upon as one of the necessary
evils of summer.
Georgia, Florida, Louisiana aud Tex
as began fighting the house fly months
| ago Tennessee is offering gold medals
to the champion fly murderers of the
/ state. Kansas was the, home of the
/ first statewide campaign against she
ny. New York, City has started in C
| keep down the summer death rate
among the children by wiping out the
1 breeding places OF the fly.
/ Two or three years ago l.. o. Howard
chief entomolcgist of the United States
/ Department, Of Agriculture saids Tbs
4 insect We now call the house ~
should in the future be termed the tyr
phoid fly' in order to call attention to
e i =