THE HOUSE FLY 17 



infantile disease, alights on the little fellow's mouth and 

 forthwith begins sucking some trace of milk from his lips, 

 infecting them with the germs of this or some other disease. 

 Nurse comes along presently with the feeding-bottle. The 

 hungry baby begins sucking the teat, and the microbes, 

 which have been deposited on his lips, are soon in his 

 stomach, or safely lodged in some crevice or fold in the 

 mucous membrane of his throat, there to incubate and 

 subsequently slay him. Possibly, nay ! probably, the nurse 

 lays the bottle aside after washing it more or less carelessly. 

 Flies swarm on the teat, infecting it with disease microbes. 

 These are subsequently sucked off by the baby. 



The husbandman sows the seed which brings forth a 

 harvest of golden grain to feed and nourish humanity. 

 The fly sows the seed which brings forth a crop of disease 

 and death. 



So long as man wilfully closes his eyes to the doings of the 

 disease microbe and its ally the House Fly, just so long will 

 he be victimised. He boasts of his supremacy over all 

 lower animal life, yet the fly and the microbe cripple and 

 slay him in millions, and he meekly submits to this hourly, 

 daily, and yearly onslaught. 



Imagine humanity in a vast stream struggling along a 

 road. As they stumble blindly along, individuals are seen 

 to fall by the wayside and perish. Do they die of good ripe 

 old age, like matured apples falling to the ground ? By 

 no means. Occasionally such an one is observed, but the 

 vast bulk of those which fall and perish are seen to be babes, 

 youths, maids, men, and women in the prime of life. Why 

 this terrible mortality ? I am puzzled, and turn with a 

 troubled mind to the Sage at my side, and inquire the mean- 



