64 EARLY FLY-REDUCTION 



that the streets, stables, Eastern courtyards contain in 

 that filthy town, which is in a most insanitary condition. 

 The flies bred in myriads, and the houses were soon 

 swarming with these pests. Everybody complained, 

 Europeans and natives alike. Food was made black 

 with the insects, milk was contaminated, and fruit was 

 infested with Musca domestica, and allied species of 

 flies. Never before had such a plague of flies been 

 seen by living people, not even in South Africa during 

 the Boer War. Then began the illness and death of 

 the newly born children. On all sides were the cries 

 of Rachel weeping for her innocents. The general 

 death-rate rose. During one week in May it reached 

 the truly terrible maximum of 105 per 1,000. The 

 infant mortality rose too and passed all bounds, and in 

 two months 3,000 children under five years of age had 

 died of enteritis. No doubt, flies conveyed the germs 

 of this disease from one child to the food of others, 

 and these, once infected, died within a few hours. It 

 was impossible for the doctors and nurses to attend to 

 these hundreds of sick children, though they did their 

 utmost. The hospitals, the dispensaries, and the Lady 

 Cromer charities were worked at full pressure, but still 

 the infants died. Had there been an anti-fly campaign 

 at Cairo many of those valuable lives and children's 

 lives are most valuable to the community would have 

 been saved. Here is a disease which is preventable. 

 There is no doubt that with proper sanitation flies can 

 be reduced enormously. Had Cairo been a sanitary 

 city the fly-plague would not have occurred. Had the 

 street and stable manure been properly removed and 

 destroyed the flies would not have existed, and many 

 of those children would still be alive. 



But Cairo does not stand alone as a city with a 



