INTRODUCTION 



FOR some years it has been common knowledge to men 

 of science that the insect known to everybody as the 

 House Fly is a carrier of the microbes of infectious diseases, 

 and that through its agency disease germs are conveyed 

 from sick to healthy people in dwellings, as well as from 

 house to house. 



Entomologists, Zoologists, and Bacteriologists during the 

 past few years have specially studied this insect, which 

 has, in the past, been regarded merely as a nuisance by 

 reason of its obtrusiveness. 



The outcome of these researches is that we now know 

 the House Fly to be the principal carrier of the germs 

 of infectious diseases from the sick to the healthy. 



In the United States of America most of the governing 

 bodies are now alive to the necessity of taking drastic 

 measures to diminish the numbers of these terrible flies, 

 and also to the extreme urgency of educating public 

 opinion on the subject. 



Diseases which afflict humanity would be reduced by 

 at least two-thirds if the microbe-carrying House Flies 

 were exterminated. For some years I have conducted 

 campaigns in the Public Press on the necessity for taking 

 active measures against this universal pest, which is mowing 

 down the flower of our race. 



Public men, school teachers, and others have repeatedly 

 urged me to write a small book of a popular nature on 

 this subject, which would be within the financial reach 

 of everybody, and this little volume is the outcome of 

 that desire. 



THE AUTHOR. 



PORT ELIZABETH, 

 May 1915. 



2077625 



