The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1912-06-21
THE
DANGEROUS FLIES
DAIRY AND FOOD DEPT. SENDS
OUT BULLETINS
Urges Action Toward Greater Clean
illness. Many Suggestions for De-
stroying Disease Germ Carrying
Pests. Mans Greatest Enemy
The Fly. Kill Him.

Flies, the common enemy of man,
disease carriers, scavengers, etc,
must be exterminated if we are to
have clean pure foods and decrease
the death rate of the community. A
nation wide war has been waged
against the house fly. Bulletins of
state departments, magazines, news
papers, circulars of various organi-
cations, ETC., have taken up the fly
war and are carrying on campaign
of education that should reach ev-
cry household. The following is from
circular isued by the American
Civic Association and as sent out by
Commissioners Dame of the state
Dairy and Food Department in the
form Of a warning bulletin:
Flies should be. kept out of our
houses, killed If they enter them, and
prevented from Matching their eggs
III stables, manure heaps, swill pals,
and other filthy places.
Because Flies Are Filthy. They
are born in filth; they feed on filth;
they walk on filth; and then, with
filth sticking to their feet, legs and
bodies, they feed and walk on the
food which has been prepared for
human beings to eat. Ii would dis
gust you, wouldn't it, if you saw
fly feeding on the filth of the street,
the stable, the garbage can, or on
something even worse, and then saw
the same fly go through the open
door or window of your dining room
and wipe his feet on the sugar, tangIe
his lgs in the butter or take bath
in the milk? If you should watch
every fly that comes into the house,
you would see that most of them
had come from such filth to the
food on yur table.
Because Flies Are Dangerous. Bad
as filth is, ii is not the worst thing
that flies carry about. They swarm
about the open sewers, drains and
outhouSes which receive millions Of
disease germs which have passed
through the bodies of sick people.
Flies in this way pick up and carry
on their bodies, heads and legs
(Which are covered with fine hairs
just suited for catching and hold
ing this sort of thing) the germs of
typhoid fever, cholera infantum Tor
the summer diarrhoea of children),
tuberculosis and several other di-
seases. DR.. L. 0. Howard, Chief En-
tOmologist Of the United States De-
partment of Agriculture, calls the
common housefly the Typhoid Fly,
because so many cases of typhoid
fever have been caused by his car
rying the germs from one sick per-
son to another. These germs are SO
small that you cannot see them with
out a microscope, but the fly that is
eating from the same plate with
you may be carrying a million Of
them.
Flies kill more people than wild
beasts and poisonous snakes. Many
OF these beasts and snakes never
get chance to kill any human be-
ing; but any one of the millions Of
flies found in most of our towns
and cities has chance, if he comes
into house carrying typhoid germs,
of killing whole family.
You have been told why YOU
should kill flies and prevent their
breeding; this is
HOW TO DO 1T.
Most house-flies i'm cities are
from eggs which have been
laid in horse manure. Some breed
in other forms Of filth, such as gar
bage cans, heaps of refuse in back
Yards, etc. The fly lays 100 or more
eggs at a time. These, If they are
not disturbed, become maggots i'm
'bout twelve hours. In from five TO
light days more, the maggots enter
he pupa state, as caterpillers do,
md after from five to seven DAYS
'ome out of the earth or manure i'm
which they have buried themselves
n the form of flies, ready i'm few
lays to become the fathers and
nothers of large families. They
reed so rapidly that in one summer
ne children and grandchildren of one
air of flies may amount to thou
ands of millions. And remember
nat the germs they carry multiply
luch faster than the flies.
(Cort;r5 90. ~ r,