164 THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
gators to study the house fly in relation to the possible 
dissemination of tubercle bacillus were Spillman and 
Haushalter in 1887. They found tubercle bacilli in the 
intestinal contents of flies and in their dejections as 
well, the flies having fed upon tubercular sputum. They 
also show that Hofmann, in a paper published in 1888 
on the spread of tuberculosis through house flies, re¬ 
ported certain observations under natural conditions. 
He examined flies captured in the room of a tubercu¬ 
lous patient and found bacilli in four out of six flies ex¬ 
amined, as well as in the fly-specks scraped from the 
walls, door and furniture of the room. Similar ob¬ 
servations are reported to have been made by Hayward 
(1904), Buchanan (1907) and Cobb (1905). 
Much stress is now being laid upon the alimentary 
transmission of tuberculosis, and in view of the facts 
just stated it can hardly be denied that the house fly is 
a serious danger in the carriage of the “white plague.” 
Anthrax 
Anthrax is an infectious and usually fatal bacterial 
disease of cattle, sheep, and other animals, producing 
ulcerations. It occasionally occurs in man, and is usu¬ 
ally known by the name “malignant pustule.” It has 
been shown by many authors that the bacillus of an¬ 
thrax is carried by several species of flies, and Celli of 
Rome, as early as 1888, found that anthrax bacilli pass, 
unimpaired in virulence, through the alimentary tract 
of flies. Other observers have accomplished the trans¬ 
fer of anthrax by means of flies from experimental 
