xvi THE HOUSE FLY— DISEASE CARRIER 



And mention of the title brings up the point as to 

 whether the writer was justified when he proposed the 

 name typhoid fly for the old and well-known house 

 fly at the meeting of the Committee of One Hundred 

 on Public Health at the meeting of the American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science, in Baltimore, 

 during the Christmas week in 1908. He has been crit- 

 icized for making this suggestion by the Association 

 of Economic Entomologists' Committee on Popular 

 Names and also by certain medical men. The objec- 

 tions have been that this name would indicate the be- 

 lief on the part of the proposer and of those who should 

 subsequently use it that the house fly is the sole car- 

 rier of typhoid or that it is the principal carrier of ty- 

 phoid ; in other words, that it is given too much prom- 

 inence from the standpoint of the etiology of typhoid 

 fever. As a matter of fact, however, the writer never 

 claimed that it was the only carrier of typhoid or that 

 it was the principal carrier of typhoid except under 

 certain peculiar conditions. In fact, the suggestion 

 seems to him to have been quite sufiiciently guarded. 

 It was as follows: "The name 'typhoid fly' is here 

 proposed as a substitute for the name 'house fly' now 

 in general use. People have altogether too long con- 

 sidered the house fly as a harmless creature, or at the 

 most simply a nuisance. While scientific researches 

 have shown that it is a most dangerous creature from 

 the standpoint of disease, and while popular opinion 

 is rapidly being educated to the same point, the re- 

 tention of the name 'house fly' is considered inadvis- 



