SCIENCE THE MASTER 



45 



a poet to negotiate the Treaty of Utrecht. But neither 

 would be of any use in modern diplomacy. What they 

 always had to seek at the present day was the aid of 

 the scientific departments of the Navy or the Army, or 

 of the Royal Society. Such matters as the relative 

 merits of a Channel tunnel or a Channel ferry, the 

 limitations of territory by land, by sea, or above the 

 land in the air, the international agreements as to 

 measures for checking the spread of disease or of insect 

 pests, and, indeed, most matters which had come before 

 him since he had been in office, had to be decided by 

 the scientific experts. He did not propose that diplo- 

 matists should at once vacate their posts and endeavour 

 to secure the occupation of them by men of science, but 

 he thought that at no distant date such a course would 

 be considered not only reasonable, but necessary ! 



1 8. The Common House-fly and Others 



The common house-fly is not so innocent as he looks, 

 but really a dirty little thing. He has not a sharp 

 beak-like proboscis, and cannot stab, but he has a soft, 

 dabbing proboscis, which he pushes on to every kind of 

 filth as well as walking with his six legs on such matter. 

 Then he comes and wipes off minute particles and 

 germs on to our food, our lips, our fingers, and faces. 

 It is quite certain that he, and others allied to him, are 

 thus the means of spreading typhoid fever in camps 

 where there are open latrines and open larders and mess 

 tables. The house-fly breeds from a maggot, just as 

 the blue-bottle or blow-fly does, but very few people 

 have ever seen or recognised the maggot of the house- 

 fly. The reason is that it lays its eggs in horse dung, 

 and the grubs are hatched in the muck-heaps of stables. 

 That is also the reason why it is much less numerous in 



