14 THE HOUSE FLY 



finding the milk an excellent material on which to feed, 

 forthwith began the process of multiplying with their usual 

 lightning-like rapidity. 



The object of this book is to get people to realise that in 

 allowing the House Fly to breed and live in their com- 

 munity, they are harbouring an enemy of the most terrible 

 kind an enemy which carries the infection which causes 

 sickness and death in our homes. Therefore no apology 

 is tendered for using the plainest of language. It is a daily 

 sight to see Kafirs, low-class Europeans, and others suffering 

 from tuberculosis, bronchitis, influenza, syphilis, &c., ex- 

 pectorate yellow phlegm in the gutter and road, and to 

 observe House Flies swarming around and on it. After 

 walking through and wallowing in these masses of filth, 

 teeming with microbes, the flies take wing and enter the 

 nearest open window or door and make straight for the 

 foodstuffs on the dining-table, kitchen, pantry, shop counter, 

 or shelves, leaving not only a trail of this horrible filth on 

 the food material, but actually infecting it with the microbes 

 of disease. Yes, a disease too, which may fasten itself upon 

 the lungs and cause consumption ; or it may be the bowels 

 or even the bones, inducing consumption of these parts, 

 and death after a long, lingering illness. 



There are many ways of carrying infection from house to 

 house. Scarlatina, enteric fever, pneumonia, tuberculosis, 

 or any of the common diseases which work havoc in every 

 community of men, may perchance have claimed a victim 

 who lies in the grip of the disease, his bodily forces fighting 

 desperately against threatened death. The House Fly 

 walks and flies merrily round the sick room, sucking up 

 infected matter and collecting it upon the sticky pads on 



