120 THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
the flies were a perfect pest; they were everywhere, and 
in and on every article of food. It is impossible not to 
regard them as important factors in the dissemination 
of enteric fever. Our opinion is further strengthened 
by the fact that enteric fever in South Africa practi¬ 
cally ceases every year with the cold weather, and this 
was the case at Bloemfontein. For though the days 
after io a.m. were as an English summer day, and the 
temperature in our tents was rarely below 70° and 
often about 8o° F., the nights were very cold, and 
often frosty, and with the cold nights the flies disap¬ 
peared. It seemed to us that the cold weather reduced 
the number of enteric cases by killing these pests.’ 
“Smith (1903), also writing of South Africa, states 
that a neglected trench ‘becomes an open privy with an 
infected surface soil around it; the flies browse in it 
in the daytime and occupy the men’s tents at night. 
On visiting a deserted camp during the recent campaign 
it was common to find half a dozen or so open latrines 
containing a fetid mass of excreta and maggots; this 
because the responsible persons so often failed to com¬ 
ply with the regulations for encampments by filling in 
latrines on the departure of the troops.’ 
“Austen (1904, p. 656) vividly recalls ‘a latrine in 
a certain standing camp in South Africa during the 
late war, in which the conditions as regards flies were 
precisely as described by Major Smith. It is only fair 
to say that the ground was extremely hard and stony, 
so that very little soil was available for covering up 
the contents of the trench. On visiting the latrine 
