FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



Writing of the strenuous days of nineteen sixteen to eighteen 

 naturally reminds me that food contamination by the housefly 

 in concentration camps and wherever great bodies of men are 

 brought together is a subject upon which we have not touched. 

 I began to study the housefly carefully as early as 1896. I pub- 

 lished a special bulletin about it a little later, and, as shown in 

 a previous chapter, went thoroughly into the question of food 

 contamination by flies coming from human excreta. I like to 

 think that my investigations and publications helped to start 

 the widespread housefly crusade in the early part of the century. 

 Surely a book that I published in 191 1 under the tide "The 

 Housefly — Disease Carrier" ^ lent a boost to the crusade. It is 

 true that typhoid inoculation was brought forward only a few 

 years later, and that by it the importance of the housefly as a 

 typhoid carrier was greatly lessened. But the pestiferous litde 

 creature carries other diseases beside typhoid, and, by the aid 

 of boards of healdi and citizens' committees, the crusade was 

 continued with excellent effect. It is true that the gradual dis- 

 appearance of horses in large cities, because of the extraordinary 

 development of the automobile industry, has been responsible 

 for the great reduction in the number of flies in cities, since the 

 housefly used to breed principally in horse manure. But the 

 crusade was an admirable one, and I am very glad to have 

 taken part in it. The United States really led the way in this 

 direction, although England took it up shortly after and excel- 

 lent work was done in London. Other countries followed. My 

 book was translated into Russian, Hungarian and Spanish; and 

 I learn that since the war intensive anti-housefly work has been 

 begun in Italy. My dear friend. Dr. Jablonowski of Budapest, 

 began to translate the book as soon as he received it, and he 



1 Frederick A. Stokes & Co. New York. 



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