THE HOUSE FLY 75 



bling in camps. It was equally severe in small as well as 

 large encampments. Infected water was at first thought 

 to be the chief cause of the epidemics of disease in the 

 camps, but investigation showed that this was not so. 

 In this, as well as in other inquiries, it was definitely 

 stated that if all the flies were destroyed in well-regulated 

 camps of men, there would be no epidemics of disease. 



In properly regulated camps no unboiled water is al- 

 lowed to be drunk unless the source of the supply is known 

 to be pure. In the South African war, typhoid, dysentery, 

 and other infectious diseases made terrible havoc in the 

 ranks by death, and in filling the hospital tents with the 

 sick, and in consequence seriously hampering the move- 

 ments of the troops. Vast swarms of flies plagued every 

 encampment and swarmed in clouds over the foodstuffs. 



Two-thirds at least of the diseases which laid low the men 

 in the various military camps, the people in the besieged 

 towns, and in the refugee camps during the South African 

 war, were caused by the infection being carried on and in 

 the bodies of flies. In turning up a score of recent reports 

 by Medical Commissions on the causes of typhoid, dysentery, 

 diarrhoea, &c., in encampments of men during peace and 

 in war, I find that in one and all the guilt is fastened upon 

 the House Fly. 



Knowing that flies are responsible for the spread of 

 disease in encampments, it is as much the duty of every 

 man to fight the fly as vigorously and as persistently as 

 the human enemy. So sure as day follows night, the dark 

 angel of disease will stalk through the camp if his death- 

 carrying agents, the flies, are allowed to swarm over the 



food and in the tents. 



F 



