8 INTRODUCTION 



the conveyance of typhoid fever became a matter of 

 importance. During that war, one-fifth of the soldiers 

 in the United States Army camps contracted the disease, 

 while, according to Vaughan quoted by Howard, more 

 than 80 per cent, of the deaths were due to typhoid. 

 During the Boer War in South Africa, typhoid fever 

 raged, and enormous numbers of our soldiers died of 

 it the Bloemfontein epidemic will be remembered by 

 every one. Although the water-supply was generally 

 condemned at the time, there is little doubt that flies 

 played a great part in disabling more British soldiers 

 than the bullets of the enemy ; the insects cost the 

 nation vast sums of money and many lives. The 

 camps, the hospitals, even the bivouacs were generally 

 fly-infested. The flies used to breed in the stables, the 

 horse-lines, the latrines, and in and about the camps, 

 and they sometimes followed the columns on the 

 march. They were a terrible pest, and nothing 

 practical was done to prevent them or to reduce their 

 numbers. During the epidemic of typhoid, Bloem- 

 fontein was fly-infested, and many of these insects must 

 have been infected with typhoid germs. And these 

 flies must be held responsible for some of the cost of 

 that war ; it is a wonderful thing to consider that house- 

 flies should have been the means of the prolongation 

 of war, the expenditure of many lives and much money ; 

 and the cause a tiny creature like the domestic fly. 

 The idea would be almost ludicrous were it not so 

 pitiful and humiliating. 



But little or nothing is being done to prevent 

 house-flies now, although they are responsible for the 

 loss of many lives annually at the present time in 

 the British Islands. For recent research has shown 



