The Palatka news and advertiser., 1915-05-21
Screens and Health.

Screens are as essential as roofs to
Florida homes.
And the remark is quite as force
fully applicable to homes in other
states as to those in Florida.
The roof and walls keep out rain,
the dampness of night dews and the
glare of the suns rays. The screen
the good screen-keeps out several of
the common preventable diseases and
makes them preventable. Therefore,
careful screening of the home is a du-
ty, just as much as the roof and walls.
The day has passed-although a
good many people haven't found it out
yet-when this substantial wire pro-
lection was merely sort of luxury
adding only to the physical comfort of
the home occupants. 1t has become
a necessity which is demanded by
state law in hotels and other public
places. Apparently we haven't yet
progressed to the point where we may
demand by state legislation that every
man shall screen every outside door
and window of his dwelling, but we
may come to it.
The carefully fitted wire screen is a
barrier to germ carrying insects. 1t
keeps out the fy-the common house
fly, which has been called mans great
est, most destructive enemy. This
insect is bred in filth, and it spends
its entire life in filth. 1t carries
filth and leaves it's traces on what
ever it touches. Under any circum-
stances a knowledge of it's habits and
habitat makes it disgusting. Its
worst crime against humanity is its
agency in the spread of typhoid fever,
carrying the germs from the excreta
of the patient and depositing them on
the food of its next victim.
Therefore, swat the fly. Kill him.
Avoid him as you would pestilence,
and in-as-mIch as even science has
discovered no means of obliterating
him from the face of the earth, it
remains our serious duty that we shall
minimize his work. No weapon is
more generally effective than the
close-ftting screen by which the pest
shall be kept from the earth closets,
shall be barred from food of every
kind, especially that which is eaten
raw, without cooking; that he shall be
kept out of the home and away from
contact with human beings. and that
his breeding paces-manure heaps
and refuse piles, shall be covered Sc
curely.
The mosquito is hardly less a men
ace to human beings than the fly, and
the screen is effective against that.
too. The crimes charged to this
winged carrier Of trouble are the
spread of malaria, of yellow fever and
of other diseases. These offences
have been proved against the mos
qIito, and its insidious methods of
working have been discovered.
The spread of these diseases was
mystery, all the more to be dreaded
because it was unknown, until the real
culprit was dragged into the light,
made to confess his crimes against
humanity, and robbed of his power
for harm, in large measure, because
we knew how to fight him.
1t is unlikely that we shall ever be
free-entirely free-from disease and
the danger of it this side the New
Jerusalem, but a kind Providence has
put into our hands the means for les
sening sickness. This knowledge has
started list of preventable diseases
and it is enlarging the list slowly and
surely, taking them from that other
list which we used to regard as inev-
liable and unpreventable visitations Of