The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1917-05-10
A WAR TO STOP THE BREEDING
OF FLIES INSTEAD OF TRYING
TO SWAT THEM


ISSUED by the State Board Of HEALTH
1t ID now known to this Board that
the common house fly carries more
sickness and deaths to human beings
every year than all other insects and
animals combined. Practically, the fly
lays her eggs only In horse manure
or in the rich soil under 1t, 120 to
100 at a time, repeating this every
3 or 4 days, and In about 10 days
each undisturbed egg Is a full grown
fly. In the heighth OF the fly season
1t has been found that each ton OF
manure often contains from fifty to q
hundred thousand or more eggs and
maggots, each of which will make a
full grown fly. Any child can prove
the truth Of this by half filling a glass
Jar with manure containing the eggs
or maggots and find how quick they
will hatch, develop, lay eggs and re-
peat the operation at the rate Of 3
generations month. This shows
how hopeless task it is to try to get
rid of them by killing individual flies,
except the few which get into screen
ed houses.
Bred in filth, and with hairs all
over their bodies, heads, legs and
bills, they spend their waking hours
IN the filth of privies and backwards
and on dead and decaying things, ex-
cept about meal-time when, reeking
in such filth, they are found crawling
over the food, hands and utensils
wherever the houses are not SO
screened and managed as to actually
keep them ont. Deadly as are the
seed or germs Of typhoid fever and
tuberculosis, 1900 Of them can be car
ried on one leg of a fly, and the seed
Of these diseases and of cholera In
iantum, dysentry and hookwOrm con-
itantly get into the mouth and body
in this way. These habits of flies can
Je easily proven by sprinkling flour
)ver the filthiest things in back yards,
and then finding it on the same flies
as they crawl over the food, hands
and dishes.
Leaving humans for moment
many intelligent up-to-date, farmers
aave stopped breeding flies because
they can not keep their work stock in
iii condition, or fatten animals for
market, during, fly time in any other
way.
AS the cost of sickness and prema-
cure funerals, to say nothing of the
suffering and sorrow involved, and the
loss from injury to domestic animals,
caused by flies, probably imposes as
such expense upon the people of Ken
lucky every year as they pay for
taxes, we want to enlist every man,
woman and child in widespread
campaign against the breeding of
flies. With the existing accurate
knowledge of the subject, if the earn
est and systematic cooperation of the
press, the pulpit, the teachers, the
women's clubs and other leaders OF
public sentiment, and, especially If the
interest of the children can be Sc
cured, it can be done in most cities
and on most farms this year How
can 1t be done?
AS has been said already, ten days
are required for the Matching of the
eggs and the maturing of the flies,
and 1t should be added that the eggs
and maggots promptly perish if the
manure is spread out in the open air
and sunshine. 1t follows that il ev-
cry stable in Kentucky where horses
are kept, in cities and towns as well
as in country districts, can be thor
oughly and Systematically cleaned out
once q week, and this valuable prod
uct spread in thin layer over the
fields and gardens, where it is so
badly needed even on the richest
farms, the breeding of these danger
GUS pests would end and the increased
fertility of the soil would pay for the
trouble and expense many times each
year. AS other varieties of flies, al
so dangerous and annoying, breed in
garbage and similar collections of
filth, all Of these things, and the soil
under them, should always be scraped
up carefully and hauled off with the
manure. There is no theory or guess
work about the advice here given.
This method has been successfully
tried out in many cities and towns,
and on thousands of farms in this
country and abroad, and all the 9TH
er plans-lime and other disinfec-
tants, fly paper and poisons, screen
ing the manure and swatting, except
inside of screened houses-are prac-
tically useless and misleading.