FLIES AND TYPHOID FEVER. 249 



A 



FLIES AND TYPHOID FEVER. 



By Dr. L. O. HOWARD, 



U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



FTEE the outbreak of the late war with Spain in the early sum- 

 mer of 1898, typhoid fever soon became prevalent in concen- 

 tration camps in different parts of the country. In many cases — in 

 fact in fully one-half of the total number — the fever was not recognized 

 as typhoid for some time, hut towards the close of the summer it was 

 practically decided that the fever which prevailed was not malarial, 

 hut enteric. During that summer the medical journals and the news- 

 papers contained a number of communications from contract sur- 

 geons au<l others advancing the theory that flies were largely respon- 

 sible for the spread of the disease, owing to the fact that in many of 

 these camps the sinks or latrines were placed near the kitchens and 

 dining tents, and that the enormous quantity of excrement in the sinks 

 was not properly cared for. One of the most forcible writers on this 

 topic was Dr. H. A. Veeder, whose paper, entitled 'Flies as Spreaders 

 of Disease in Camps/ published in the 'New York Medical Record' of 

 September IT, 1898, brought together a series of observations and 

 strong arguments in favor of his conclusion that flies are prolific con- 

 veyors of typhoid under improper camp conditions. 



This idea was not a new one. Following the proof of the agency 

 of flies in the transmission of Asiatic cholera by Tizzoni and Uattani, 

 Sawtchanko, Simmonds, Uffelmann, Flugge and Macrae, it was shown 

 by Celli as early as 1888 that flies fed on the pure cultures of Bacillus 

 typhi abdominalis are able to transmit virulent bacilli in their ex- 

 crement. Dr. George M. Kober, of Washington, in his lectures before 

 the Medical College of Georgetown University, had for some years been 

 insisting upon the agency of flies in the transmission of typhoid, and 

 in the report of the health officer of the District of Columbia for the 

 year ending June 30, 1895, referred to the probable transferrence of 

 typhoid germs from the privies and other receptacles for typhoid stools 

 to the food supply of the house by the agency of flies. 



Moreover, the Surgeon-General of the Army, Dr. George M. Stern- 

 berg, was fully alive to the great importance of the isolation and dis- 

 infection of excrement, as evidenced in his prize essay on 'Disinfection 

 and Personal Prophylaxis in Infectious Diseases,' published by the 

 American Public Health Association in 1885, and in the first circular 

 issued from his office in the spring of 1898 (April) careful instruc- 



