PREVENTIVE MEASURES 
209 
once emptied. A description of the apparatus with a 
diagram of its construction will be found in Appendix 
V. Its cost of construction is said to be about $1.40. 
There seems no doubt that this invention of the of¬ 
ficers of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Ser¬ 
vice is the best down to the present time in the way 
of a sanitary privy. Recommendations, however, have 
been made in this direction by boards of health and by 
private individuals. Rev. George W. Lay (1910), for 
example, has given at considerable length directions 
for the construction of a good privy, and terms it “The 
North Carolina Sanitary Privy.” He rather holds to 
the dry-earth view, and mentions kerosene only by 
stating that if a little of it is sprinkled in the privy box 
it will have a tendency to keep the flies away. 
Kerosene, however, should be used, not so much as 
a preventive, but as a means of destroying eggs and 
larvae. In communities like mill towns, where the ma¬ 
jority of the flies breed in the privies owing to the lack 
of horse stables and horse manure, and it may be 
found impossible to compel the construction of new 
sheds, the use of kerosene on the dejecta will be ef¬ 
fective. 
In 1906, the Paris journal Le Matin offered a prize 
for the best methods of destroying flies. The compe¬ 
tition attracted a great deal of attention, which was 
fostered by the newspaper by frequent articles. The 
prize was finally awarded to an anonymous writer who 
proposed to pour green oil of schiste in privies and 
upon manure piles, mixing it in the latter case with 
