The Adair County news., 1915-02-24
HEALTH OFFICERS COLUMN.
BY u. L. TAYLOR.

want to speak to the News read.
ers this week about a disease that has
been curse to humanity for hundreds
of years In this county it stands
second to consumption in the number
of its victims. The name of it is ty.
phoid fever. 1t is a contagious dis
ease, and is spread largely by the COM
mon house fly. Physicians have never
been agreed as to its cause or it's treat
ment. am more interested in its
cause than it's treatment, but 1 am
more interested in its prevention than
either one II is disease that orig
mates in filth, and no man ever has
had case of typhoid fever, no man
has case of typhoid, and no man will
ever have case of typhoid fever, I'm.
less he gets into his system in some
way. small portion of the contents
of the bowels or kidneys of some one
suffering from the disease. This is a
J mighty ugly thing to have to say, but
| it is better to say it that some one
may be warned, so that one may use
all the means in his power to avoid it.
Typhoid fever kills it's hundreds and
its thousands every year, and it would
be absolutely criminal in me, on &C
count of little false modesty to ne
glect to tell the people the truth as to
the sole cause of this terrible malady.
1 have said, and will say again that
the common house fly is largely re-
| sponsible for the spread of this disease.
The question then comes up, that if
the common house fly is the cause of
typhoid fever, and that no human be
ing ever has the disease without get
| ting into the system a portion OF the
discharges from the kidneys or bowels
of some one suffering from it, how can
these two statements harmonic? l
shall undertake to make this plain be-
fore l close this paper. Every body
knows if he has noticed the habits and
customs of the fly, that filth is its nat
ural habitat. 1t breeds in the stable
manure, in badly kept water closets,
in hog pens which are not kept clean,
and in every place where filth and
dirt abound. We can swat the fly, we
can trap him, we can tangle him in
tanglefoOt, but the only way to utter
ly destroy him, is to break up his
breeding places 1t is only a few
years ago that the fly was proven to be
so dangerous to the health of the peo-
pie. He had been destroying the hap
piness of the people ever since the
days of Pharoah. He had been SuS-
pected of being a disease carrier for
some time, but he had not been
proven guilty until the time of the
Spanish-American war. In the Amer
lean camps down in Florida, 1t was
noticed that officers living in screened
tents did not have typhoid fever,
while soldiers staying in unScreened
tents, large majority of them were
infected. The sanitarians of the ar
my led by the medical men, set snare
for the fly which proved a success
They sprinkled a fine white powder
around the water closets, and the fly
walking over the white powder got it
on his feet, and were tracked to the
dining rooms, and to the sick soldiers,
visions On the dining table, showing
that the same flies that had visited
the water closets were visiting the
dining rooms. And we all know and
have always known, that flies are re-
markably good to visit the sick, and
unlike common white folks they visit
the sick every day. They do not wait
for Sunday when they have nothing
else to do, but go daily. And they go
where there are no screens, into the
dining rooms, swim about in the gravy,
crawl over the soft butter, drop into
the butter milk, and sometimes go in
to the kitchen and help the cook to
make ap the biscuit. l suppose every
body has at some time seen fly baked
up in biscuit. This is not very appe-
tizing, but it has one redeemiDg quail
ity. and that is that that fly has been
everlastingly put out of commission,
with all the disease germs appertain-
| ing thereto. You can kill disease
germs by baking, by burning, or by
boiling, but never by freezing, When
the walters on the table that l have
been describing, find flies in the but
ter, in the buttermilk and in the gra-