xvi THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
And mention of the title brings up the point as to 
whether the writer was justified when he proposed the 
name typhoid fly for the old and well-known house 
fly at the meeting of the Committee of One Hundred 
on Public Health at the meeting of the American As¬ 
sociation for the Advancement of Science, in Baltimore, 
during the Christmas week in 1908. He has been crit¬ 
icized for making this suggestion by the Association 
of Economic Entomologists’ Committee on Popular 
Names and also by certain medical men. The objec¬ 
tions have been that this name would indicate the be¬ 
lief on the part of the proposer and of those who should 
subsequently use it that the house fly is the sole car¬ 
rier of typhoid or that it is the principal carrier of ty¬ 
phoid ; in other words, that it is given too much prom¬ 
inence from the standpoint of the etiology of typhoid 
fever. As a matter of fact, however, the writer never 
claimed that it was the only carrier of typhoid or that 
it was the principal carrier of typhoid except under 
certain peculiar conditions. In fact, the suggestion 
seems to him to have been quite sufficiently guarded. 
It was as follows: “The name ‘typhoid fly’ is here 
proposed as a substitute for the name ‘house fly’ now 
in general use. People have altogether too long con¬ 
sidered the house fly as a harmless creature, or at the 
most simply a nuisance. While scientific researches 
have shown that it is a most dangerous creature from 
the standpoint of disease, and while popular opinion 
is rapidly being educated to the same point, the re¬ 
tention of the name ‘house fly’ is considered inadvis- 
