| OCR Text |
Show FLIES AGAIN. Editor Intermountain Catholic In your paper cf this week you print an editorial in opposition to the destruction of the house fly, known in the present enlightened age as the "typhoid" fly, and advance the theory that the fly serves some useful purpose or it would not be here. In the face of the best thought and in opposition to the proved facts of science, I am somewhat surprised that your journal jour-nal should permit itself to go on record in opposition. oppo-sition. It has been the contention of the Catholic church that it is not opposed to scientific research, scientific progress, although such charges are frequently fre-quently made by opponents of your organization -yet here we have the church coming out flat-footed in opposition to facts as well proved as that the earth is round. How do you account for it? W. T. B. We do not account for it. Our correspondent, it is plain to be seen, believes the well-worn and oft-refuted oft-refuted charge that the Catholic church is opposed to progress and scientific research, and by misreading mis-reading our editorial on "Flies and Typhoid" hopes to fasten the charge down with proofs out of our f own mouth. ' In the first place, the Catholic church does not deal in flies. What we say concerning flies, or what any priest or layman says or thinks about flies, has nothing to do with the doctrines of the church.' WTe are ready to grant that the results of investigation show pr.etty clearly that the fly is not. a desirable companion; that the germs of disease may-be carried car-ried from place to place and deposited on our food nay, further, that such is really the case. But granting all this, is it not plain to our correspondent corre-spondent that there may yet be a useful purpose served by the fly ? It, breeds in filth, bo scientists tell us. Does not the presence of the fly therefore indicate a condition that should be remedied a condition of which the fly is the surest indication ? Surely all the. sticky fly paper and all the poison fly paper set about our houses and back doors will not remove the condition of which the presence of the fly issure proof. Surely the presence of the fly is a warning to us to look about us and clean up. If the microscopic examinations of the fly are correct, and we have no reason to doubt the truth of the statements of the scientists, the conclusion is inevitable that the fly is as important in the economies of the world as is the smallpox flag or the scarlet fever flag posted on quarantined houses to warn the general public of the presence of the danger. It seems to us about as sensible to kill the flies, to exterminate them, as it would be to burn all the disease flags posted by the board of health. The destruction of the fly would amount to nothing noth-ing more than destroying the evidence that there is a filthy condition somewhere that should be remedied. rem-edied. In the past we have called the attention of our readers to the proven facts concerning the danger that lurks in the presence of the flies, and have urged the use of screens and the greatest caution to keep flies away from their food supplies. Further Fur-ther than this, we have urged our readers to keep their premises in a sanitary condition in order that there might be no breeding places for the pest about them. We are not particularly opposed to fly pa per of different kinds; in fact, we make us of both kinds about our home during the fly season, and we keep our house as free from flies as possible, as we urge our readers to do. We personally therefore there-fore cannot be charged with any desire to court the presence of the fly. And in all our study of the church we fail to find one scintilla of evidence that the church ever passed upon the subject. Besides being an evidence of a condition which should be remedied, we are not prepared to say that the fly does not occupy a position of real benefit to mankind in some other way. We showed last week how the destruction of the snakes in South Carolina brought on a worse pest, and how the destruction de-struction of the rats in Barcelona resulted in an epidemic. We do not know that any disastrous results re-sults would follow the destruction of the fly; perhaps per-haps there would, perhaps there would not. Surely it is not opposition to science to urge that we find out what we are doing before we do it. If it is, we must concede that we are opposed. |
