THE HOUSE FLY 39 



days, making only ten days for the complete life cycle. Dr. Howard 

 considered that probably ninety-five per cent, of all house flies in towns 

 and cities breed in the heaps of horse manure about the stables or in 

 the fields. Later investigations of Dr. Howard and others show that 

 the house fly may breed in privies, garbage cans and garbage heaps, 

 street sweepings, waste from slaughter houses, and even between the 

 folds of old paper from ash dumps. In fact, in almost any place where 

 suitable moisture and food conditions exist. 



Notable Typhoid Epidemics 



The thoughtlessness of some persons having charge of the sick is 

 described by Dr. Yeeder in the New York Medical Record. 1 He states 

 that he has seen dejecta from a typhoid patient emptied from a com- 

 mode and the receptacle left standing without disinfection within a few 

 feet of a pitcher of milk, both attracting flies, which fairly swarmed 

 from one to the other. In the summer of 1898, when our armies were 

 in camp in the southern states during the Spanish war, an epidemic of 

 typhoid broke out. It caused much apprehension and cost many lives. 

 Though the water supply was suspected, the authorities were not able 

 to check the disease by the methods usually practised. Dr. Veeder was 

 one of the first to advance the idea that the germs were being carried 

 by flies, and it was not until the camp had been visited by government 

 entomologists from Washington that the matter was properly con- 

 trolled. I have the statement from a young soldier who at Chicka- 

 mauga contracted the disease and was carried to a Philadelphia hos- 

 pital for treatment, that the sinks or latrines had become filled to over- 

 flowing, and were not even covered with dirt, but, reeking with filth 

 and disgusting odors, they attracted vast swarms of flies. It was but 

 a short distance to the mess tents, where flies swarmed just as thickly, 

 and during the investigation that followed, flies were taken from the 

 food with their legs whitened by the lime that had been spread over 

 the sinks. Thousands of soldiers were then encamped, hundreds were 

 sick with typhoid, yet the able men had little or nothing to do, and 

 might just as well have kept the camp in a sanitary condition. It ap- 

 peared afterwards that the sanitary regulations of the surgeon general 

 had not been followed : the privates dared not complain, the officers in 

 charge were indifferent to this phase of the sanitation of the camp, and 

 the surgeons were all busy administering to the sick and wounded. 

 Such a condition is especially dangerous in view of the fact that in 

 typhoid cases the germs are often given off in the dejecta before the 

 disease has been recognized and before the patient takes to the bed, 

 and also for a long time after recovery seems complete. 



Permit me to quote from the official report of Messrs. Peed, Yaughan 

 7 H. A. Yeeder, New York Medical Eecord, Vol. 54, September 17, 1898. 



