REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 1908 27 
a harmless species which, in recent years, has become well estab- 
lished in many houses in New York State. It is credited with 
preying on house flies, cockroaches and presumably other insect 
inhabitants of dwellings. 
The house fly as a carrier of disease. The house fly is such 
2 common insect that altogether too much has been taken for 
granted. Up to recently it has been considered simply as an 
inevitable nuisance. Later developments have shown that this 
insect may be an important factor in the dissemination of certain 
diseases. 
Typhoid fever is one of the most serious ailments to which man 
is subject. There are about 250,000 cases of this disease annually 
in America, about 35,000 proving fatal. 60% of the deaths in 
the Franco-Prussian War and 30% of the deaths in the Boer War 
were caused by this disease. Positive statements have been made 
to the effect that the house fly was an active agent in the dissemi- 
nation of this disease, while certain reputable physicians consicer 
this charge unproved. The Spanish-American War, if it accom- 
piished nothing else, called attention in a most forcible manner to 
the part flies might play in the dissemination of typhoid bacilli. 
Dr M. A. Veeder of Lyons writing in 1898 was very strongly of 
the opinion that the house fly was largely responsible for the dis- 
semination of this disease in camps. Dr Walter Reed writing of 
an outbreak near Porto Principe in the annual report of the War 
Department states that the outbreak “was clearly not due to water 
infection but was transferred from the infected stools of patients 
to the food by means of flies, the conditions being especially favor- 
able for this manner of dissemination.” Dr L. O. Howard, writing 
in 1900 on the fauna of human excrement, quotes from 
Dr Vaughan, a member of the army typhoid commission, as fol- 
lows: 
27 Flies undoubtedly served as carriers of the infection. 
My reasons for believing that flies were active in the dissemi- 
nation of typhoid may be stated as follows: 
a@ Flies swarmed over infected fecal matter in the pits and tien 
visited and fed upon the food prepared for the soldiers at the 
mess tents. In some instances where lime had recently been 
sprinkled over the contents of the pits, flies with their feet whit- 
ened with lime were seen walking over the food. 
b Officers whose mess tents were protected by means of screens 
suffered proportionately less from typhoid fever than did those 
whose tents were not so protected. 
