THE TYPHOID FLY 141 



windows or screenless doors in the same building. Add to these con- 

 ditions dense ignorance on matters of hygiene, indifference and intol- 

 erance of being interfered with, together with the fatalistic spirit above 

 referred to, and one realizes that conditions there are almost always 

 ripe for an epidemic. 



It is hardly necessary to dwell at length on the house fly, now 

 known as the typhoid fly, as a factor in the spread of the disease from 

 which it is named. The excellent work of Dr. Howard along these 

 lines, as well as later investigations, has placed the responsibility of 

 one means of dissemination of typhoid where it belongs, and, as you 

 well know, although we should still have typhoid if the house fly did 

 not exist, and in spite of the fact that other insects may well carry 

 the germ, the house fly is so evidently the chief offender that the name, 

 " typhoid fly," is a very proper one to call attention to the danger of 

 its presence. 



In the eighties the possibility of flies carrying disease germs was 

 called to the attention of physicians and the public. In 1898 we find 

 what is perhaps the first reference to observations on the house fly's 

 frequenting typhoid excreta, and thence flying to food, and the state- 

 ment that bacterial cultures were obtained from both fly tracks and 

 fly specks. Closely following this, in 1899, came the outbreak of 

 typhoid amongst our soldiers in camp at Porto Principe, and Major 

 Peed's report to the War Department that the epidemic was due to 

 flies. The public then began to turn its serious attention toward the 

 fly question. In 1900 Howard's article, published in the Proceedings 

 of the Washington Academy of Sciences, on " A Contribution to the 

 Study of the Insect Fauna of Human Excrement," further emphasized 

 the great danger from the presence of flies in the household, and, as 

 the house fly is the most common fly in that locality, designated that 

 insect especially as an enemy to health. "Work of different observers 

 along these lines followed rapidly enough, every year showing additions 

 to the evidence against this common insect, and the campaign against 

 it was inaugurated, but it was not until recently that, as significant of 

 its habits, and in order to help in this battle, the name of " typhoid 

 fly " was suggested and adopted by entomologists. 



We know that it may carry typhoid germs on its feet, on the hairs 

 over its body, and in its alimentary canal and that these germs may 

 live and be potent for some time even after having passed through its 

 intestine. We know, in view of recent work, that this fly not only 

 breeds in horse manure, but also in human excrement and other forms 

 of filth, and it is a matter of common observation that this insect 

 frequents all kinds of pollution from which it may carry disease germs 

 to human food. You will readily see then, from the description of the 

 domestic conditions prevailing amongst the miners on the Iron Range, 



