The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1912-05-16

the construction of its mouth apparatus. What
ever disease germs it carries it is passive
process the chief danger being the contami-
nation of foods by bacteria carried on the
face of its body or in its bowels. OF all insects
the house fly is the most constant companion OF
man, tasting his food by day and frequenting his
abode by night whether in the far north or the
far south, whether the land the steamers
that ply on the great oceans. Its very name,
Musca domestica suggests its relation to man.
If the fly cleanly insect he might per
haps be tolerated, but from the double life he
leads there is no question that he should be eX-
terminated hip and thigh, for he spends half his
day in the latrine or manure heap amid the most
foul putridity that it is possible to imagine, amid
dead deCaying. and diseased matter, from which
at intervals he comes to battle in your milk jug
or to poise himself on your pat of butter or your
meat. Many of his habits have until recently
been riddle but are now becoming understood,
and in consequence his presence is much
feared as many Of his congeners who have for
saken the dunghill for meal of good human or
animal blood.
All modern experiments concur to show that
the principal breeding place of the house fly is
the moist, manure heap cesspool, or latrine,
although perhaps 1t must be admitted that some
flies more fastdious. If collections Of filth
were destroyed the fly plague would be kept
largely in allegiance AS things are he can breed
in countless numbers and at a great rate.
The evolution of the house fly is complex, for
from the moment that the female deposits her
eggs in warm putrefying manure the young go
through various stages of development. Within
a matter of hours the egg splits and a minute
grub creeps out At the end Of twentyfour hours
it moults and passes into the second arval stage,
which in a day or two moults again and finally
becomes a sort of chrysalis, At the end three
or four days Of chrysalis life the opens and
the fly emerges to commence its life work. With
in ten days or a fortnight it may be seXUally ma
t1re and commence to lay great patches of eggs.
AS a rule breeding goes on rapidly between June
and October, although under certain circum-
stances it may go on all the year round. 1t is
common observation that flies seem to disappear
in winter This must be explained by their ability
to hibernate. the first warm day waking them
from their slumbers.
II is a fortunate circumstance that they are
liable to various forms of destruction, for apart
from the magnificent work carried out by the bird
by the spider and other insects the fly is subject
to devastating diseases, particularly infective
condition set up by fungus, the Empusa muscae.
This plant, in the form of a spore, lights on the
surface Of the fly and begins to grow, throwing
out a slender process which makes its way be-
tween the fy's scales, and thus gains entrance to
its body. In the course of a few days the fungus
has invaded all its organs and tissues, and now
sick unto death the fly may be easily caught or
may drop dead where it has aghted
AS was said above the chief danger of the fly
is that it may be carrier of foul putrefactive or
disease germs to articles of diet consumed by
man. This is not a figment of the brain of the
medical scientist; it is a proved fact. Indeed
long before accurate experiments proved this to