INSANITARY CIVIC CONDITIONS AND FLIES 241 



immediately, as their mere presence for a short time attracts the 

 flies and their continued presence serves to multiply the nuisance." 

 In this connection I called attention to the following evidence 

 indicating the relation of the presence of flies to insanitary con- 

 ditions and the presence of nuisances : "In his report on the 

 sanitary conditions of Wigan (' Reports of Medical Inspectors of 

 the Local Government Board on the General Sanitary Circum- 

 stances and Administration of the County Borough of Wigan, with 

 especial reference to Infantile Mortality and to Endemic Prevalence 

 of Enteric Fever and Diarrhoea,' 22 pp., 1906) Dr Copeman says 

 (p. 18) : ' At the Miry Lane Depot, as previously mentioned, there 

 is always stored (awaiting removal by formers) an enormous amount 

 of nightsoil mixed with ashes which in hot weather especially, is 

 not only exceedingly offensive, but is beset by myriads of house- 

 flies. As the result of personal enquiry at the various houses in 

 the neighbourhood in which during the year 1905 deaths from 

 diarrhoea had occurred, I learnt that considerable nuisance from 

 the foul odour was apt to be experienced during the prevalence of 

 hot weather, especially with the wind in the south or south-west, 

 i.e. blowing from the Depot to the special area; so much on 

 occasion as to render it necessary to shut all the windows, while 

 the inhabitants of certain of the houses nearest the Corporation 

 Depot stated that at certain times of the year their rooms were 

 apt to be invaded by a veritable plague of flies tuhich swarmed 

 over everything of an edible nature on the premises. (The italics 

 are mine, C. G. H.) This being so, it would not appear improbable 

 that these flies, some of which have doubtless had an opportunity 

 of feeding on and becoming contaminated with excremental 

 material of human origin, may have been the means of carrying 

 infectious material to certain foodstuifs, such, more particularly, as 

 milk and sugar and so, indirectly, of bringing about infection of 

 the human subject.' " 



The count}^ of Durham has the highest death-rate from enteric 

 fever of any county in England or Wales. In discussing a preliminary 

 report of an investigation into the subject Dr Newsholme, Medical 

 Officer of the Local Government Board, as reported in The Times 

 (weekly edition) of August 5th, 1910, states : " We come finally 

 to the conditions with which the excess of enteric fever in the 



H. H.-F. 16 



