212 The Story of the Bacteria 



women, and children whenever opportunity 

 offers. 



This is certainly bad enough, and the 

 excreta which we euphemistically name fly- 

 specks, mark the scope of its summer ex- 

 cursions. But the worst of it is, that the 

 bacteria which are swarming in most of the 

 stuff the house-fly eats and dabbles his feet 

 and tongue in, are in large degree alive, after 

 they have passed the department of his 

 interior, and they stay long alive upon his feet. 



Now when the house-fly feeds upon infective 

 human excreta as he does whenever he gets 

 a chance, the typhoid bacilli or the tubercle 

 bacilli or the contemptible brood which in- 

 cites dysentery and the protean summer 

 ailments of both old and young, may be 

 carried directly and in full virulence to the 

 food and persons of the well. 



It has been shown by hundreds of accu- 

 rate scientific observations that the house-fly 

 is the conveyor of infective stuff, especially 

 of typhoid fever, but also of the other mala- 

 dies which we have named. 



If the fly which favors us with his addresses 



