18 THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC FLIES 



formidable disease, and it is probably largely due to flies, 

 as will be shown later. 



This infantile enteritis, or summer diarrhoea, as it 

 is frequently called, is the most fatal enemy to children. 

 It is quick and sure, and it kills. It takes the infants 

 of the poor more readily than those of the rich and 

 well-to-do, for it finds them easier of access. But once 

 it arrives it is no respecter of persons, and unless it is 

 nipped in the bud it smites the coming generation ; and 

 if left to its own will it will take the healthy as well as 

 the unhealthy, the strong and the weak, the well-born 

 and the lowly ; and when it starts working it does its 

 work well. During the hot weather at Cairo in 1909 

 it killed 3,000 infants in less than two months ; so it is 

 a disease which knows no finicking methods. It is true 

 that in civilised countries the children of the richer 

 classes frequently escape this affection, but this is 

 because improved sanitation has reduced flies in modern 

 cities. In the West End of London, for example, the 

 stables and mews have become garages, and there are 

 only a few flies where formerly thousands pestered, and 

 there the children escape ; besides, the rich can afford 

 to have their infants carefully nursed and tended, 

 and early treatment often effects a cure. But this 

 disease is one which can be prevented among the poor 

 too. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that most important 

 discoveries have recently been made concerning this 

 dangerous affection, very little notice has been taken 

 of them, and, although children die of this disease 

 every year, little or nothing has been done to fend 

 it off. 



During the years 1905 to 1908 a series of researches 

 were carried out by Dr. Morgan at the Lister Insti- 

 tute of Preventive Medicine in London. He examined 



