FLIES THAT FREQUENT HOUSES 45 



appeared to prefer the knees and upper portion of the foot 

 in the cow, frequently crawling from thence to the hands 

 of the veterinary, but on him their bite had no injurious 

 effect." 



Relation to disease. The biting house-fly has been 

 suspected of transmitting disease, particularly among 

 domestic animals. They have been charged with trans- 

 mitting glanders from diseased to healthy animals and 

 anthrax among cattle. Schuberg and Kuhn have lately 

 shown, experimentally, that this fly is capable of trans- 

 mitting certain trypanosomes in a mechanical manner to 

 healthy animals. In 1912, Brues and Sheppard brought 

 together certain evidence pointing toward this fly as a 

 transmitter of infantile paralysis. Later, in September of 

 that same year, Rosenau and Brues announced that they 

 had experimentally transmitted infantile paralysis, through 

 the agency of Stomoxys calcitrans to monkeys which were 

 suspectible to the disease. In the month following, 

 October, Anderson and Frost, of the Public Health and 

 Marine Hospital Service, announced that they had re- 

 peated the experiments with similarly positive results. 

 We therefore find that four scientists working in groups 

 of two, independently of each other, have demonstrated 

 that the biting house-fly is a transmitter of infantile 

 paralysis among monkeys susceptible to the disease. 

 Moreover, Brues and Sheppard have shown that the 

 seasonal occurrence, distribution, and other facts con- 

 nected with Stomoxys agree wonderfully well with the 

 conditions of an epidemic of this disease. From all the 

 evidence at hand we are justified in looking upon the biting 

 house-fly with considerable suspicion, for it may be a 

 transmitter of infantile paralysis among children. It must 



