PREVENTIVE MEASURES 209 



once emptied. A description of the apparatus with a 

 diagram of its construction will be found in Appendix 

 V. Its cost of construction is said to be about $1.40. 



There seems no doubt that this invention of the of- 

 ficers of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Ser- 

 vice is the best down to the present time in the way 

 of a sanitary privy. Recommendations, however, have 

 been made in this direction by boards of health and by 

 private individuals. Rev. George W. Lay (1910), for 

 example, has given at considerable length directions 

 for the construction of a good privy, and terms it 'The 

 North Carolina Sanitary Privy." He rather holds to 

 the dry-earth view, and mentions kerosene only by 

 stating that if a little of it is sprinkled in the privy box 

 it will have a tendency to keep the flies away. 



Kerosene, however, should be used, not so much as 

 a preventive, but as a means of destroying eggs and 

 larvae. In communities like mill towns, where the ma- 

 jority of the flies breed in the privies owing to the lack 

 of horse stables and horse manure, and it may be 

 found impossible to compel the construction of new 

 sheds, the use of kerosene on the dejecta will be ef- 

 fective. 



In 1906, the Paris journal Le Matin offered a prize 

 for the best methods of destroying flies. The compe- 

 tition attracted a great deal of attention, which was 

 fostered by the newspaper by frequent articles. The 

 prize was finally awarded to an anonymous writer who 

 proposed to pour green oil of schiste in privies and 

 upon manure piles, mixing it in the latter case with 



