30 LOSS THROUGH INSECTS THAT CARRY DISEASE. 



the bacteria were analyzed into four groups. The objectionable class, 

 coU-m-ogenes type, was two and one-half times as abundant as the 

 favorable acid type. If these flies stayed in the pigpen vicinity there 

 Avould be less objection to the flies and the kinds of organisms they 

 carry, but the fly is a migi-atory insect and it visits- everything ' under 

 the sun.' It is almost impossible to keep it out of our kitchens, din- 

 ing rooms, cow stables, and milk rooms. The only remedy for this 

 rather serious condition of things is, remove the pigpen as far as pos- 

 sible from the dairy and dwelling house. Extreme care should be 

 taken in keeping flies out of the cow stable, milk rooms, and dwell- 

 inas. Flies walking over our food are the cause of one of the w^orst 

 contaminations that could occur from the standpoint of cleanliness 

 and the danger of distributing disease germs." 



The danger of the typhoid or house fly in the carriage of disease 

 has thus been abundantly demonstrated. Further than this, it is an 

 intolerable nuisance. With mosquitoes it necessitates an annual out- 

 lay for window and door screens in the United States of not less than 

 ten millions of dollars. As a carrier of disease it causes a loss of 

 many millions of dollars annually. Dr. G. N. Kober, in a paper pre- 

 pared for the Governors' Conference on the Conservation of Natural 

 Resources, held at the White House in May, 1908, entitled " The Con- 

 servation of Life and Health by Improved Water Supply," presented 

 figures showing that the decrease in the vital assets of the country 

 through typhoid fever in a single year is more than $350,000,000. 

 The house fly, as an important agent in the spread of this disease, is 

 responsible for a very considerable portion of this decrease in vital 

 assets. As an agency in the spread of other intestinal diseases, this 

 sum must be greatly increased, and yet it is allowed to breed unre- 

 stricted all over the United States; it is allowed to enter freely the 

 houses of the great majority of our people; it is allowed to- spread 

 bacteria freely over our food supplies in the markets and in the 

 kitchens and dining rooms of private houses, and, to use the happy 

 i)hraseolog}^ of Dr. Theobald Smith, " when we go into public restau- 

 rants in midsummer we are compelled to fight for our food with the 

 myriads of house flies which we find there alert, persistent, and 

 invincible." 



Even if the typhoid or house fly were a creature difficult to de- 

 stroy, the general failure on the part of communities to make any 

 efforts w^hatever to reduce its numbers could properly be termed 

 criminal neglect; but since, as will be shown, it is comparatively an 

 easy matter to do away with the plague of flies, this neglect becomes 

 an evidence of ignorance or of a carelessness in regard to disease- 

 producing filth which to the informed mind constitutes a serious blot 

 on civilized methods of life. 



