THE HOUSE FLY 29 



fact is that, owing to the increased temperature, House 

 Flies have been enabled to breed with greater rapidity, and 

 in vaster numbers, and are consequently more potent in 

 spreading infection. 



The Japanese surgeons were fully alive to the dangers 

 entailed by the presence of House Flies, for, during the 

 Japanese-Russian War, they took the most elaborate pre- 

 cautions to protect the sick and wounded men from these 

 dreaded carriers of disease. At the same time every pos- 

 sible means was taken to prevent the breeding of flies by 

 the prompt burial of the dead men, horses, and camp refuse. 



Flies have been captured at random in the dwellings of 

 man and about the streets and subjected to a careful ex- 

 amination under the microscope, with the object of ascer- 

 taining the number of disease microbes they carried. The 

 number of microbes on each fly was found to average from 

 five hundred to about six millions. The average for four 

 hundred and fourteen flies showed over a million microbes 

 per fly. Think of it ! the hundreds of House Flies which 

 you harbour in your dwelling may, each of them, have a 

 million germs of one or more serious diseases on their bodies, 

 and inside their crop and digestive organs. 



The exact way by which this average was obtained was 

 to drop the flies into a bottle of sterilised water, and after 

 shaking the liquid, the bodies of the flies were removed and 

 a portion of the water examined under a microscope, and 

 the bacteria counted. In this way the same average 

 number of microbes would be contained in the water as 

 would be found in milk after a similar number of flies had 

 accidentally fallen into it. 



It would be well for mothers to remember the fact that 



