THE TYPHOID FLY, OR HOUSE FLY. 35 



As a matter of fact, large sums of money are spent annualh^ in the 

 protection of property in the United States. Large sums of money 

 are spent also in health matters; but the expenditure for protection 

 from flies is very small and is misdirected. There is much justifica- 

 tion for the following criticism published editorially in the Journal 

 of the American Medical Association for August 22, 1908, under the 

 caption, " National Farm Commission and Rural Sanitation :" 



" The President calls attention to the fact that all efforts to aid the 

 farmers have hitherto been directed to improving their material 

 welfare, while the man himself and his family have been neglected. 

 Nowhere is this more marked than in the attitude of the General 

 Government in matters relating to sanitation. It is a trite saying 

 that whereas the Government, through the Department of i^gricul- 

 ture, aids the farmer generously in caring for the health of his hogs, 

 sheep, etc., it does nothing for his own health. The Government 

 issues notices to the farmer of the injury done to his crops by the 

 cotton-boll weevil and the potato bugs and how to combat them, but 

 the injury the mosquito does in spreading malaria to the people who 

 pick the cotton and hoe the potatoes is not impressed on him. The 

 fact that horseflies may carry anthrax to his cattle is dealt with at 

 considerable length, but the diseases which the house fly spreads to 

 the milk and to the farmer's family attract practically no attention. 

 How to build a hogpen or a sanitary barn is the subject of a nmnber 

 of government publications, but how to build a sanitary privy which 

 will prevent the spread of typhoid, hook worm, and many other dis- 

 eases is regarded as of strictly local interest." 



But this criticism is not entirely justified, since there was published 

 by the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of 

 Agricidture, in 1900, a Farmers' Bulletin, entitled " How Insects 

 Affect Health in Rural Districts,"* in which all of these points men- 

 tioned by the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation have been touched upon, and at the date of present writing 

 192,000 copies of this bulletin have been distributed among the 

 people. Moreover, a number of years ago a circular^ was published 

 on the subject of the house fly, calling attention to its dangers and 

 giving instructions such as are covered in a general Avay in this 

 article, and some 18,000 copies of this circular have also been dis- 

 tributed. This is an indication that the General Government is by 

 no means blind to the people's needs in such matters as we have 

 under consideration, but further work should be done. That the 

 English Government is awaking to the same need is shown by the 

 fact that, in the parliamentary vote of the present j^ear in aid of 



« Farmers' Bulletin No. 155. 



** Circular No. 35, Bureau of Entomology, 1S91, afterwards reissued in revised 

 form as Circular No. 71. 



