THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 85 



Dr. H. A. Veeder, in a paper entitled " Flies as Spreaders of 

 Disease in Camps," published in the New York Medical Record of 

 September 17, 189S, brought together a series of instances and strong 

 arguments in favour of his conclusion that flies are prolific conveyers of 

 typhoid under improper camp conditions. 



In Dr. G. M. Sternberg's circular No. r, published April 25, 1898, 

 explicit directions were given to army surgeons regarding sinks, which, if 

 explicitly followed, would have prevented the spread of typhoid by flies. 

 Two sentences may be quoted from this circular : "Sinks should be dug 

 before a camp is occupied, or as soon after as practicable. The surface 

 of fcecal matter should be covered with fresh earth or quicklime or ashes 

 three times a day. No doubt typhoid fever, camp diarrhoea, and probably 

 yellow fever, are frequently communicated to soldiers in camp through 

 the agency of flies, which swarm about faecal matter and filth of all kinds 

 deposited upon the ground or in shallow pits, and directly convey 

 infectious material, attached to their feet or contained in their excreta, to 

 the food which is exposed while being prepared at the common kitchen 

 or while being served in the mess tent." Thus the Surgeon-General not 

 only gave sound instructions, but stated his reasons for these instructions : 



" In 1898 an epidemic occurred in the camp of the Eighth Cavalry 

 at Puerto Principe, Cuba, in which 250 cases of the fever occurred. The 

 disease was imported by the regiment into its Cuban camp, and Dr. 

 Walter Reed, U. S. A., upon investigation, reported to the Surgeon- 

 General that the epidemic ' was clearly not due to water infection, but was 

 transferred from the infected stools of the patients to the food by means 

 of flies, the conditions being especially favorable for this manner of 

 dissemination.' 



" The agency of flies in the transmission of Asiatic cholera was 

 convincingly shown at an early date by the observations of Tizzoni and 

 Cattani, Sawtchanko, Simmonds, Uffelmann, Flugge and Macrae, while 

 Celli had shown as early as 1888 that flies fed on the pure cultures of 

 Bacillus typhi abdominalis were able to transmit virulent bacilli into 

 their excrement." 



Owing to the prevalence of typhoid in the United States Army during 

 the summer of 1898, an Army Typhoid Commission was appointed in 

 that year, at the request of the Surgeon-General. The report of this 

 Commission has not yet been published, but one of the members, Dr. 

 Victor M. Vaughan, U. S. V., read before the annual meeting of the 



