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Show SOME MQRE ABOUT FLIES. I E. G. Titus. I For only a few years have we H known that .sonic insects and some other airtmals, such as mites and ticks, arc capable of spreading diseases. H Certain species will carry certain dis- H cases by becoming an intermediate H host for the minute animal causing H the disease, such as the malarial "para- site" which can only be transmitted through one of those mosquitoes H known "malarial" mosquitoes, which jfl belonging to certain groups having H as one of their distinguishing features, spotted wings. Several serious dis- jfl cases in re carried in this manner. fl Certain other insects arc capable of fl carrying disease germs directly on H their bodies, on their feet and on fl their mouth parts. To this group be- H long the minute flics which in some H parts of the country carry the human disease known as "pink-eye." And in this same manner is that one of the most serious of all our diseases, typhoid ty-phoid fever, carried. It is true that typhoid moy be contracted con-tracted by other means than through the agency of the housefly, but it is unquestionably one of the most efficient ef-ficient means of 'transmitting the disease. dis-ease. In the city the principal sources of typhoid arc contaminated milk or " water and, lack of care in the disposal' o,f "typhoid discharges. A large num- r,'fbcr'Xf' the city cases will be found to have been -contracted while the pcr-so'n pcr-so'n was in 'the country on a summer vacation or at some resort where no care was taken to prevent such diseases dis-eases from being contracted,- In fact the greater outbreaks of this disease hvc become so intimately connected with the seasons following the sum- 9 mcr that it is often called the "au- 1 tuinnal fever." The princii il reason (1 for its incrcai&cd numfber of cases at il this time of year is without doubt that 1 flies a'- more prevalent at this time 1 of ' year. The city with a modern J w sewerage system, sanitary plumbing, J proper control of its water supply, 1 and where connected water-closets aitdwell enforced health regulations aMrSJfc.theTexception has lit-. tic excuse for its residents to con- -liM R tract the disease and should be ab solutely able to control its -spread. The country conditions often account ; to an alarming extent for the con tamination of the city water supply. Hence as Dr. L. O. Howard of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, thn whom there is no better authority authori-ty on this subject states: "The city water must be filtered; the milk drank by children -sterilized and excreta of persons returning to the city after contracting typhoid in the country must be disinfected with the utmost care. These three measures systematically syste-matically followed will result in tli2 abolition of typhoid fever within the city boundaries." While the country conditions and those of our towns and villages arc radically different from those of the city and will long continue to be so proper control of typhoid patients and ordinary sanitary precautions will, to a great extent eliminate a large pat I of the spread of the disease. The proper control of the housefly is one of the most important of these sanitary sani-tary precautions, and in the city should be one of the strong features of the health department's work. There arc probably mor.e houscflies bred out in the smaller towns than in the country districts; the reasons for this being obvious such as the presence pres-ence of more manure piles, more garbage gar-bage and other decaying vegetable matter, on a given area, less opportunity oppor-tunity for its ready disposal. Usually no attempt is made to dispose dis-pose Of the refuse of the horse stable so long as there is roomi to pile it up. Hlencc it often becomes merely an outer coating of more or less dry vegetable and animal matter, heating and slowly decaying as it added to day by day, while inside the mass arc thousands upon thousands of maggots mag-gots rapidly developing into that universal uni-versal pest the housefly or into some other closely related, no less dangerous, but not so common fly. , The little fruit fly, or vinegar fly, as it is often called, cpmmon from naw '1 until frost comes, wherever decaying II or over-ripe fruit is present and !e- jl conies especially numerous where the housewife is canning fruit. This lit- t tic fly will breed, in almost any du ll caying vegetable, matter, but very II oftcp lay their eggs in human excreta t and have also been hi;cd in numbqrs B fegnvhorQ iyamisc. . I Is it much wonder that typhoid gaining entrance to one member of a family often breaks out In a number ' of others? Since it is now known that for some time previous to the recognition of the case as 'typhoid flic pticnt may scatter the infection' 'and for a long time after his apparcnt(rc-covcry apparcnt(rc-covcry the germs are still passing from him it behooves us to take the utmost care. While infected water is undoubtedly often the cause of contraction of the disease, some one must have been criminally careless or such infection would not have occurred. Infected food will occur so long as we carefully care-fully control our drinking supply, but wash our vegetables, those to be eaten uncooked among them, in any apparently appar-ently clean water that is convenient. It will also occur wherever we o.llov flics to breed and wherever we give them free and open access to unprotected un-protected and untreated closets. i From the stable to the closet, from the closet to the food is indeed too often the first journey of the freshly emerged housefly, the lover of all that is filthy, and discasc-ladcn he comes to call upon us. , To one main conclusion this leads us: clean up. Eliminate the fly from the house so much as we can by prop- Jftfe4SSa xintcnigrojipj,! Sljccp the sick room absolutely free roniiflics,and allow them no access ffio their ordinary brcjyljngplacc the stable and the closet. Tak'e care of jyour water supply; scethat-oiu have mroper drainage, r ' n . m ifu- |