The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1912-07-03
KILL THE FLY OR
He Will KILL YOU
Thousands Who Die Annually ol
Typhoid Taken Into Homes
by Pest-Craveyards Fat

sentence, printed in blazing red let
tiers on placards, is being used in
many American towns and cities in
the war against the typhoid fly.
In 1900 more than $4,000 people in
this country died of typhoid fever,
says the st. Louis Republic. Flies
killed practically all of them
Not any fanged, clawed, venemous
and singing fly that came and went
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. Every one knew that muir
ders and railroad accidents were help
ing to remove the population. Every
one knew that some man or woman
in the next block had typhoid, but it
didn't worry them. They were used
to typhoid.
A Fly and the Baby
A baby sat in q high-chair pushed
UP close to screenless window. He
was bottle baby The bottle had
been scalded and the milk had been
sterilized. Apparently the baby
should have been safe enough. A fly
came up out OF the alley filth. 1t lit
on the bottle and the hands of the
baby. Ten days later little white
coffin was carried out of the house
and placed in, snowy hearse drawn
by milk-white horses Alas!
Flies help to keep the graveyards
frk he H. lie
Here is typhoid as an instance. Peo-
pie used to watch the milk supply
only when they were trying to dodge
typhoid. There was house up
stream from another where half a
family lay sick with this burning dis
order. Their milk supplies were
from different dairies.
Another Case Of Infection
There, was no chance of infected
sewage, 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 mile or more. Flies
do. Musca. Domesticus (highbrow
name of the f1y) took little saunter
from the polluted premises one morn
ing. was caught in the wind current
and landed in the upstream neigh
In few days there was another ty-
phoid-infected house in the valley.
Musca Domesticus is about the
deadliest creature that crawls, swims
of flies. He is in the same class with
the dog whose jaws drip hydro
phobia. He ranks with the timber
rattler, who carries cold death in his
fiat head. He is as dangerous as a
cocaine-maddened negro with an au-
tomato revolver.
You can crush him with a tap of
the finger if 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
hairy, ,glairE body. Catching him. il
just the trouble. He is so ctnanion
that he is looked UPON as one OF the
necessary evils of summer. sx
Il Georgia, Florida, louisiana and
Texas began f1ghting,lt the house fly
months ago Tennessee is offering
gold medals to the champion fly mpr-
derers of the state. iNansas was the
home of the first statewide. cam
paign against the fly. New York city
has started in to keepcdown the sum-
mer death rate among the children
by wiping out the breeding places OF
the fly.
House Fly Misnamed
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 tc
call attention to the danger of allow
ing it 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
flieo and fever became a sort of I'M
holy trinity.
The house fly is the terror thai
stalketh by MONDAY. He and his null
tiple feet dripping with germs are al
over the premises. He plants few
germs in your bread. He buries them
in the butter on your table. Out in
the milk bottle he browns few mil
lions of them, but they are hale and
healthy. He sows the seeds of death
in and on everything that he touches
Defy Adding Machine
Last March if you had killed the
first fly you saw you would have in
fact killed $1,000, 900, 100000 of these
,, pests of the community. They breed
faster than an adding machine car
keep track of the increase. Mathema'
ticians have spent weeks figuring how
long it would take for the fly tribe tc
| literally inherit the earth if they had
not natural enemies. They discovered
! that the flies would swamp humanity
in less time than it would take the
mathematician to figure out the exact
date
We really out to have started Tho
war of determination last March. Tht
| fly is abroad in the land now. terri
BILE as an army with banners, only hi
is very quiet with all his deadliness
Kill one now and ysu cut off a few
million flies from any chances o.
life, but there are already so many
abroad that what the one fly Nigh
have done will hardly be missed.
The flyless age may come in the
future. The flies will pass out of the
world along with the horse and tn,
stable About 80 per cent. of al
| these pests are born I'm Snue body