INSECTS AND DISEASE 5 



glossaries of Shakespeare that I have consulted the 

 word fly is not included, and this is a curious fact. 

 Possibly the insect is mentioned by the poet but is not 

 considered of sufficient importance to be dwelt upon 

 by his commentators. It has been stated that the 

 French word for handkerchief, mouchoir, is derived from 

 the word mouche, a fly ; but the true derivation is more 

 probably to be found in the verb moucher, to blow the 

 nose. However, it seems to have been the custom in 

 the time of the Stuarts for the gallants to wave flimsy 

 lace handkerchiefs about in an affected manner, as 

 if they were perpetually fending off flies ; no stage 

 cavalier is considered perfect unless he does this well. 

 The Arabic word for fly is dibanah. It seems to be 

 derived from the same source as the word divan, the 

 Arabic for sofa (or the room containing it), where the 

 wealthy Arab takes his afternoon nap. 



During the past two centuries various writers have 

 stated, in more or less general terms, that flies and 

 other insects may convey disease ; but it was not until 

 the discoveries of Pasteur of the capabilities of micro- 

 organisms in causing disease, and the application of 

 those discoveries by Lister in preventing germ-growth 

 in wounds, that the importance of flies began to be 

 realised. With the discovery of the tubercle bacillus 

 by Koch, and that of the typhoid germ by Eberth and 

 Gaffky in 1880, the question of fly-carriage of disease 

 assumed larger proportions and began to be investi- 

 gated. Then the whole subject of insect-transmission 

 of diseases received a fillip by the well-known discovery 

 of the conveyance of malaria by mosquitos in 1897-9. 

 It was following this last discovery that attention was 

 seriously directed to house-flies as disease-carriers, and 

 more practical work on the subject instituted. While 



