206 THE HOUSE FLY DISEASE CARRIER 



dom through seventy-two inches of sterilized sand, 

 truly an heroic struggle! 



Dry earth, therefore, is not satisfactory, although in 

 earth closets provided with buckets removed daily the 

 problem resolves itself into the question of the proper 

 disposal of the contents of the buckets. 



In many localities lime is used instead of dry earth. 

 A careful study of the lime system was made by Stiles 

 and Gardner in a certain industrial village of the South. 

 In that village the habit was to clean the outhouses 

 once a week and to distribute the lime free to the fam- 

 ilies. The people were notified repeatedly that the lime 

 should be used regularly and generously, and the au- 

 thorities of the village assured the observers that all 

 reasonable efforts were made to carry out the system 

 properly. It therefore seemed to the Government men 

 that this particular village was a very fair case to take 

 as a basis for observations as to the actual workings of 

 the system. Their observations were careful, and they 

 found that in thirty-two instances out of eighty-eight 

 the lime had actually been used, and the conclusion was 

 that, even where lime is furnished free of cost and the 

 people are urged to use it, it is not generally adopted. 

 Moreover, of the thirty-two outhouses in which it had 

 been used, it was freely used in only three cases. 



The conclusion was that families cannot be relied 

 upon to use it properly. In not one instance of the 

 eighty-eight did they fail to find exposed night-soil of 

 easy access to flies and other insects. Live fly larvae 

 were found in all samples taken. It may be mentioned 



