210 SLEEPING SICKNESS, FLIES, AND DISEASE 



We must have often observed by the sea foreshore 

 the prevalence of flies especially where the foreshore 

 is used as a dumping ground for garbage. Yet town 

 councils have wondered why tlieir apparently beauti- 

 fully situated seaside resorts should still have cases 

 of typhoid and other intestinal fevers. There is no 

 wonder when we realise that the fly is the common 

 carrier. The fly has now been proved experimentally 

 to be a carrier in the case of cholera, typhoid, tubercle, 

 and no doubt of the germs of summer diarrhoea. In 

 Egypt the dissemination of the common ophthalmia 

 present amongst the poor people is also largely due to 

 tl>e fly ; for we have no doubt seen in that country 

 the eyes of children rendered black by swarms of 

 them. The relationship of the fly to leprosy has 

 often been commented upon, and in my own ex- 

 perience I have on many occasions been struck by 

 the great abundance of flies swarming around the 

 patients. 



Plan of Campaign. — Knowing the danger of the fly, 

 the next step is to get rid of it. As far as I am aware, 

 the first Corporation to move in this direction was that 

 of the City of Liverpool. In December 1900 the 

 ]Medical Officer of Health of this city, Dr. Hope, 

 instructed Mr. Newstead of the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical INIedicine to undertake a minute inquiry into 

 the breeding places of the fly throughout the city. A 

 report was drawn up by INlr. Newstead which has 

 served as a model for many other corporations in this 

 and other countries. The chief strongholds of the fly 

 were found to be manure-heaps in connection with 



