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Show NsvEst Medical DlSCOVEHES ' A i fi n a p m n ftoout to UEw lammu fiioysef lj These filthy pests distribute among people germs of typhoid and other bowel diseases, tuberculosis, infectious blood poison and even leprosy Begin Be-gin your summer war on them now:: Clean the premises thoroughly and burn trash r ute among people germs S- el diseases, tuberculosis, . xlfc ind even leprosy : : Be- tW ': ' r them now:: Clean the J I burn trash based on Professor Howard's experiments, has . been made and shows that one fly can have between be-tween June 1 and September 2S, 4,353,654,672,000,-000,000,000 4,353,654,672,000,-000,000,000 descendants. Prof. S. A. Forbes, state entomologist of Illinois, Illi-nois, found that house flies breed freely In decaying decay-ing animal carcasses, a point of significance In. connection with war conditions. It is most Important to have an efficient flytrap. One known as "the Minnesota flytrap" appears to be the best constructed. It Is planned on the principle of having a box with a hole beneath it, a piece of bait under the hole and sufficient space for the fly to walk under the box. The box Is entered through a funnel that is a decapitated cone. The fly, having gorged himself on the bait, will, according to his Invariable habit, fly upward through the funnel and become Imprisoned In the box. He will not fly out. Health Officers Responsible. The courts have passed upon the question of damages for a sufferer from typhoid who could trace his illness to files feeding upon the filth of sewage. A few years ago a man living in German-town, German-town, Philadelphia, recovered heavy damages from the city for his illness, which he proved was caused by a stream flowing through his yard which had been polluted by sewage from a house tenanted ten-anted by a typhoid patient. The defense relied upon proof that the plaintiff had neither drank nor bathed In the stream, but an entomologist convinced con-vinced the jury that he had contracted the disease dis-ease through the medium of flies, which had carried car-ried the infection from the stream to the food exposed to their visits in his house. Scourge of European War. A horrifying form of the fly peril has been encountered en-countered during the present European war. This is the presence of myriads of flies that have bred on the bodies of the. dead soldiers and carry septicemia (blood poisoning), and other diseases. Profiting by the experience of the Spanish-American and Boer wars, the military authorities protected pro-tected the pits in permanent trenches and camps against flies, but thousands of dead bodies are lying in the shell-swept area between opposing trenches, where it is absolutely impossible to carry out sanitary measures. The London Lancet announces that the spread of typhus, an eruptive fever quite different from typhoid, has been traced to flies. Typhus has always al-ways occurred in dirty and starving communities. It has been very prevalent in Russia, and is said to have been largely responsible for stopping the first Russian invasion of Austria, because it killed and prostrated so many men. The spreading of infantile paralysis virus on the feet and in the gullet of the house fly, as observed by Doctor Flexner of the Rockefeller institute, has already been thoroughly explained. Experiments have also been made Indicating that the poison of this disease is conveyed by the bite of the stable sta-ble fly very much as malaria is conveyed by the bite of the mosquito. These experiments are thus described by Dr. C. B. Winslow, an expert on insect pests, of the American Museum of Natural History: Tests With Monkeys. "Prof. M. J. Rosenau of the Harvard Medical school, succeeded in producing infantile paralysis in six out of twelve monkeys bitten by stable flies which had been allowed to feed on other monkeys suffering from the disease. "Professor Rosenau's work has since been confirmed con-firmed by Doctors Anderson and Frost of the United Unit-ed States public health service. There Is, of course, no certainty that the disease is always transmitted by the stable fly. The work of Doctor Flexner and of the Swedish observers and the occurrence of a certain proportion of cases In cold weather strongly suggest that sometimes infantile paralysis may be spread by direct contact between human beings or in other ways than by fly bites. On the other hand, it seems certain the biting stable fly is one means by which the disease is conveyed ; and the seasonal and geographical prevalence of the epidemics make it seem probable that this is the usual and most important means. "The habits of the stable fly differ widely from those of the house fly. The stable fly is a biting fly, feeding on the blood of the higher vertebrates. It is found in the vicinity of dwellings, particularly where horses and cattle are kept, but it is apt to remain outdoors in warm, sunny places, and does not come into the house much except at night and before rain." 4 r If AT the common house fly is the greatest great-est menace to human life in temperate regions tho highest medical and scientific scien-tific authorities in the United States and Europe are now generally united in C' declaring. VSa. The dissemination through this insect in-sect of the epidemic, infantile paralysis, which last year killed thousands of New York's children In but one of the many counts in the Indictment In-dictment against the filthy fly. Infantile paralysis paraly-sis is peculiarly shocking because it deforms children chil-dren so cruelly, but in its destruction of life it is far less serious than typhoid fever, which we now know to be largely a fly-borne disease. Similarly Simi-larly the fly probably causes far more mortality through its instrumentality in spreading tuberculosis tubercu-losis than as a carrier of infantile paralysis. All over the world scientists are studying the fly, discovering new dangers to public health caused by it and suggesting new methods of exterminating ex-terminating It. Dr. L. O. Howard, the chief entomologist of the United States government, now suggests that the name "typhoid fly" should be given to the common house fly, because the latter name fails to suggest the deadly character. Mr. Howard tells how the deadly character of the fly was proved by feeding flies with pure cultures cul-tures of the typhoid bacillus. Material from the bodies of the insects and fly-specks made by them were then examined and found to contain the bacilli. This material was injected into animals nd proved to be virulent. Flies Carry Typhoid. There were 250,000 cases of typhoid in the United Unit-ed States last year, and over 35,000 proved fatal. During the Spanish-American war flies which had swarmed over infected matter in the lime-strewn pits walked over the soldiers' food, leaving traces of lime. Many cases of typhoid occurred, killing far more than bullets. Officers whose tents were screened from flies showed fewer cases. Typhoid disappeared In winter, when flies were no longer about. Infected water was not an Important factor fac-tor in these camps, but a majority of cases must have been due to the flies. More than 80 per cent of the total deaths in the war were caused by typhoid. The danger of infection is greatly increased by the fact that typhoid germs may remain active in a person's intestines long after he has recovered from fever. Dr. George A. Soper recently discovered discov-ered a case of a cook employed by several families fami-lies In the vicinity of New York. She had recovered recov-ered completely from typhoid fever, but she gave the disease to members of every family where she was employed. Four other cases of this kind are mentioned by Doctor Howard. Spread Enteric Fever. During the Boer war 100,000 British soldiers were laid up at one time by enteric fever, now shown to have been spread by flies. Profiting by such lessons, the United States authorities on the Pannma canal work protected refuse against flies, and this, together with the careful screening of houses, adopted primarily as a defense against malaria, reduced typhoid to a negligible quantity. A long series of observations is being conducted, showing that flies play an important part In spreading Asiatic cholera. The British warship Superb, in the Mediterranean, suffered from an I epidemic of cholera, which continued while at sea, I but on the disappearance of flies it ceased. Professors Pro-fessors Tizzoni and Cattani of Italy, in 1SS6, found active cholera germs in the deposits of flies caught in the cholera wards at Bologna, Italy. Cost Millions a Year. Doctor Howard says the decrease in the vital assets of our country through typhoid fever in a single year is more than $350,000,000. The typhoid fly is also a disseminator of tuberculosis. tuber-culosis. Dr. Frederick T. Lord, the Boston scientist, scien-tist, says: "Flies may Ingest tubercular sputum and excrete ex-crete tubercle bacilli, the virulence of which may last for at least fifteen days." Matter from tuberculous patients must, therefore, there-fore, not be allowed to come in contact with flies, and the patients should be screened for their own good and that of the rest of the community. Drs. W. M. Esten and C. J. Mason of Storrs experiment ex-periment station, Connecticut, who counted 550 to 6,000,000 bacteria on flies, observed that these insects in-sects carried contamination from the pigpens to the milk in dairies. Life History of Fly. "The only remedy for this serious condition of things." they say, "is to remove the pigpen as far as possible from the dairy and dwelling house. Extreme care should be taken in keeping flies out of the cow stable, milk rooms and dwellings." Doctor Howard has traced the life history of the fly, finding that 120 eggs are laid by a single female, and that in Washington In midsummer a generation is produced every ten days. In experimenting ex-perimenting he found that his flies would breed only in horse waste, but the evidence indicates that they breed in various kinds of filth. His conclusion, con-clusion, however, is that the vast majority must come from horse stables. As tested out and recommended by the United States department of agriculture, sprinkling and soaking such a pest heap with a solution of one-half one-half pound of powdered hellebore in ten gallons of water (stirring well and allowing it to stand for 24 hours), will destroy all the maggots, eggs and larvae which are then present. Almost equally good results, although not quite so certain, can be secured by sprinkling freely with powdered borax and then pouring water over, so as to carry it down all through the mass. The amount of hellebore helle-bore solution required is about a gallon to the Susliel of manure. A rtceu calculation of the fly's rate of ine -ase. |