168 THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
are commonly seen flying about the eyes of domestic 
animals, the writer was informed by the late Henry G. 
Hubbard that he believed these little flies to be respon¬ 
sible for the transfer of the pink-eye among the school 
children of Florida. He had known this disease to 
run rapidly through a school and had observed that the 
little Hippelates flies were always present and were 
much attracted to the inflamed eyelids. 
When this observation of Hubbard’s was mentioned 
to Dr. Lucien Howe of Buffalo, Doctor Howe informed 
the writer that in his opinion the ophthalmia of the 
Egyptians is also transferred by flies, and presumably 
by the house fly, and referred the writer to a paper 
which he had read before the Seventh International 
Congress of Ophthalmology at Wiesbaden in 1888. He 
referred to the extraordinary prevalence of purulent 
ophthalmia among the natives up and down the River 
Nile and to the extraordinary abundance of the flies 
in that country. He spoke of the dirty habits of the 
natives and of their remarkable indifference to the vis¬ 
its of flies, not only children, but adults allowing flies 
to settle in swarms about their eyes sucking the secre¬ 
tions and never making any attempt to drive them 
away. Doctor Howe called attention to the fact that 
the number of cases of this eye disease always increases 
when the flies are present in the greatest numbers and 
that the eye trouble is most prevalent in the place where 
the flies are most numerous. In the desert where flies 
are absent, eyes as a rule are unaffected. He made an 
examination of the flies captured upon diseased eyes, 
