CARRIAGE OF DISEASE 
155 
Dysentery 
The probability of the carriage of dysentery as an 
intestinal disease has been suggested by several writers 
and especially by medical officers of the English army 
in India, and two of these were referred to by Nuttall 
and Jepson in 1909, but at that time these authors were 
obliged to state that there was no direct evidence bear¬ 
ing upon flies in relation to dysentery. Since the publi¬ 
cation of their abstract of the literature, however, an 
important paper has been published by Orton and 
Dodge (1910). We have previously referred to this 
paper under the heading “Substances in which the early 
life is passed.” 
It seems that during 1910 an epidemic of 136 cases 
of bacillary dysentery occurred in the Worcester State 
Hospital and Doctor Orton found that the epidemic 
had spread gradually. It was not characterized by a 
sudden general series of cases. This, of course, argued 
against the theory of a water-supply infection, and it 
also argued equally well against milk infection and in¬ 
fection from raw foodstuffs. It is obvious that with 
infection from any of these sources a large number of 
patients would have become ill at the same time. House 
flies were unusually abundant in the hospital in spite 
of screening, and these were considered to be the car¬ 
riers of the dysentery. We have elsewhere shown that 
it was finally discovered that the unusual number of the 
flies was due to certain piles of spent hops and barley 
malt which had been hauled in as fertilizer on the 
grounds near the buildings. 
