168 THE HOUSE FLY— DISEASE CARRIER 



are commonly seen flying about the eyes of domestic 

 animals, the writer was informed by the late Henry G. 

 Hubbard that he believed these little flies to be respon- 

 sible for the transfer of the pink-eye among the school 

 children of Florida. He had known this disease to 

 nm rapidly through a school and had observed that the 

 little Hippelates flies were always present and were 

 much attracted to the inflamed eyelids. 



When this observation of Hubbard's was mentioned 

 to Dr. Lucien Howe of Buffalo, Doctor Howe informed 

 the writer that in his opinion the ophthalmia of the 

 Egyptians is also transferred by flies, and presumably 

 by the house fly, and referred the writer to a paper 

 which he had read before the Seventh International 

 Congress of Ophthalmology at Wiesbaden in 1888. He 

 referred to the extraordinary prevalence of purulent 

 ophthalmia among the natives up and down the River 

 Nile and to the extraordinary abundance of the flies 

 in that country. He spoke of the dirty habits of the 

 natives and of their remarkable indifference to the vis- 

 its of flies, not only children, but adults allowing flies 

 to settle in swarms about their eyes sucking the secre- 

 tions and never making any attempt to drive them 

 away. Doctor Howe called attention to the fact that 

 the number of cases of this eye disease always increases 

 when the flies are present in the greatest numbers and 

 that the eye trouble is most prevalent in the place where 

 the flies are most numerous. In the desert where flies 

 are absent, eyes as a rule are unaffected. He made an 

 examination of the flies captured upon diseased eyes, 



