xviii THE HOUSE FLY DISEASE CARRIER 



preaches it for suggestiveness and availability is the 

 name "filth fly," proposed by Dr. C. W. Stiles, of the 

 U. S. Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. 

 But "filth fly," while a nauseating name associated as 

 it must be with the dinner tables of unscreened houses, 

 carries simply the noisome idea and not the dangerous 

 idea, and the latter is one that will induce people to 

 fight. 



It will not be an easy fight. The species is firmly 

 intrenched; it multiplies with startling rapidity, and 

 its breeding places are everywhere. Improved sanitary 

 methods in cities and the gradual disappearance in 

 cities of horse stables, due to the rapid increase in the 

 number of motor vehicles, are bringing about a de- 

 cided lessening of the myriads of flies in the cities. 

 In small towns, however, and in the country and at 

 army posts, and especially in concentration camps, and 

 wherever large bodies of men are brought together 

 for temporary purposes in construction work, there is 

 great need of intimate practical knowledge of the ty- 

 phoid fly and of the measures to be taken against it. 

 The residents of cities must also have this knowledge, 

 but they need it less than the others. 



Acknowledgments of assistance from others will 

 be made in the text from time to time. The writer 

 wishes especially, however, to thank Prof. S. A. Forbes, 

 Dr. C. W. Stiles, and Dr. B. H. Ransom for allowing 

 him to use their very valuable but as yet unpublished 

 notes on several aspects of the fly question. He wishes 

 also to thank Mr. R. B. Watrous, Secretary of the 



