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STEUCTUEE, DEVELOPMENT, AND BIONOMICS OF HOUSE-FLY. 395 



lopota, Tab an us, and Chrysops. These biting and blood- 

 sucking flies live upon the blood of living rather than dead 

 animals. But it is from the carcases and skins of animals 

 which have died of anthrax that infection is more likely to 

 be obtained, and I believe that such flies as the blow-flies 

 (Calliphora spp.), and sometimes M. domestica and 

 Lucilia csesar, which frequent flesh and the bodies of dead 

 animals for the purpose of depositing their eggs and for the 

 sake of the juices, are more likely to be concerned in the 

 carriage of the anthrax bacillus and the causation of malig- 

 nant pustule than are the blood-sucking flies. Consequently, 

 as M. domestica and its allies only are under consideration, 

 and for the sake of brevity, the relation to anthrax of the 

 non-biting flies only will be considered here. 



The earliest bacteriological evidence in support of this 

 belief was published by E/aimberb (1869). He experimentally 

 proved that the house-fly and the meat-fly were able to carry 

 the anthrax bacillus, which he found on their probosces and 

 legs. In one experiment two meat-flies were placed from 

 twelve to twenty-four hours in a bell-jar with a dish of dried 

 anthrax blood. One guinea-pig was inoculated with a pro- 

 boscis, two wings and four legs of a fly, and another with a 

 wing and two legs. Both were dead at the end of sixty 

 hours, anthrax bacilli being found in their blood, spleen, and 

 heart. He concludes: "Les mouches qui se posent sur les 

 cadavres des animaux morts du Charbon sur les depouilles, 

 efc s'en nourissent, ont la faculte de transporter les virus char- 

 bonneux depose sur la peau peut en traverser les differentes 

 couches." Davaine (1870) also carried out similar experi- 

 ments with C. voinitoria, which was able to carry the 

 anthrax bacillus. Bellinger (1874) found the bacilli in the 

 alimentary tract of flies that he had caught on the carcase 

 of a cow dead of anthrax. Buchanan (I.e.) placed C. 

 vomitoria under a bell-jar with the carcase of a guinea-pig 

 (deprived of skin and viscera) which had died of anthrax. 

 He then transferred them to agar medium and a second agar 

 capsule, both of which subsequently showed a profuse growth 



