TYPHOID FEVER I43 



which swarmed in all the camps and devoted their attentions 

 impartially and alternately to the faecal matter in the open and 

 not disinfected latrines 'and the food of the troops.'" "These 

 pests had inflicted greater loss upon American soldiers than the 

 arms of Spain." These remarks of the American Commissioners 

 are supported by Veeder ( 1 898, p. 429) who states with reference 

 to standing camps in the same campaign that he " has seen 

 faical matter in shallow trenches open to the air, with the merest 

 apology for disinfection, and only lightly covered with earth at 

 intervals of a day or two. In sultry weather this material, fresh 

 from the bowel and in its most dangerous condition, was covered 

 with myriads of flies, and at a short distance there was a tent, 

 equally open to the air, for dining and cooking. To say that 

 flies were busy travelling back and forth between these two 

 places is putting it mildly." " There is no doubt that air and 

 sunlight kill infection, if given time, but their ver}' access gives 

 opportunity for the flies to do serious mischief as conveyers of 

 fresh infection wherever they put their feet. In a few minutes 

 they may load themselves with the dejections of a dysenteric or 

 typhoid patient, not as yet sick enough to be in hospital or 

 under observation, and carry the poison so taken up into the 

 very midst of the food and water ready for the next meal. 

 There is no long roundabout process involved. It is very plain 

 and direct, and yet when the thousands of lives are at stake in 

 this way the danger passes unnoticed, and the consequences are 

 disastrous and seem mysterious until attention is directed to the 

 point; then it becomes simple enough in all conscience." 



Vaughan states that during 1898, in some of the large 

 military camps, where lime had been sprinkled recently over the 

 contents of the latrines flies with their feet whitened with lime 

 were seen walking over the food. 



Munson (1901) remarked that "the typhoid epidemics of 

 1898 gradually decreased with the approach of cold weather and 

 the disabling of the fly as a carrier of infection. Where a strong 

 wind constantly blows from the same direction, a fly-borne 

 infection will chiefly extend down wind, as this insect always 

 rises and generally moves in the direction of air currents " 

 (see p. TJ). 



