NEEDS OF ENTOMOLOGICAL SANITATION IN AMERICA 35 



carried out which will be of such nature that it will bring results. We 

 have the theories and the scientific facts but we must give the public 

 practical demonstrations that freedom from insect pests means reduced 

 sickness. 



Any person informed on this subject who has traveled much in rural 

 sections of this country' and seen the unobstructed entrance of myriads 

 of house-flies to the dwellings, especially the kitchens and dining rooms, 

 and then has stepped outside and within a few feet found the open privies 

 breeding these flies, cannot help but feel a sickening sensation and a 

 revulsion toward eating anything that the flies could have polluted. It 

 is not at all uncommon in rural sections to see babies exposed to the unre- 

 stricted visits of flies, and their milk bottles covered with them. The 

 writer has been informed over and over by physicians in small towns 

 that when infantile diarrhea or any other intestinal complaint visits a 

 town it makes the rounds of every infant in the town, unless perchance, 

 some mother is more advanced in her knowledge of such matters and 

 keeps her baby constantly screened. When typhoid fever and dysentery 

 visit towns with open privies and unscreened houses or hotels only the 

 more cautious and more resistant escape. Such communities off*er every 

 conceivable opportunity for the spread of diseases by flies. 



THE INSANITARY FARM 



For fifteen years the writer has traveled extensively in rural communi- 

 ties, principally in the Southern States, where insanitary methods, if 

 existent, aggravate disease conditions because of the more favorable 

 climate and greater number of maladies present. We may picture, there- 

 fore, a few of the conditions which have been repeatedly seen in these 

 travels, in order the better to show the problems to be met. We shall not 

 claim that these pictures represent the predominant, or the usual, or the 

 average condition. Let it sufl^ce that they exist suflSciently often to make 

 them worthy of serious attention. 



The farm we will describe has been seen countless times. The house 

 has no screens on the windows, in fact, often has no window panes, or 

 may have wooden windows which are open all day. The house is one- 

 storied with an outside chimney, and an open fireplace. The chimney and 

 fireplace offer excellent day hiding places for mosquitoes, which are 

 abundant if there is a slough or bayou nearby. The house is built on 

 stumps or pillars raised above the ground. The pigs and Chickens, dogs 

 and cats, wander freely underneath. The house has a great open hall- 

 way through the middle, separating the bedrooms from the living rooms. 

 On account of tlic numerous flea-breeding animals which pass under the 

 house, fleas are not at all uncommon in the house. The well is usually 



