32 MAINK AGRICULTURAL LXP^RIMLNT STATION. I913. 



markets of the State is filthy, and disgusting still the actual 

 danger to 'be encountered in the meat is practically negligible 

 when compared to a loaf of bread exposed without protection. 



Why Such a Law is Nlclssary. 

 Some of the reasons for this paragraph on sanitation in the 

 law and the regulations under this paragraph are here ex- 

 plained. There are three particular reasons why a law protect- 

 ing food materials from exposure is essential to public health. 

 They are The Fly, Dust of Streets, and Man Himself. 



THL dangerous I^LY. 



The fly long considered a nuisance has now come to be rec- 

 ognized as the most dangerous animal with which we come in 

 contact. Breeding only in filth and excreta, obtaining its liv- 

 ing alike from this filth and from foods intended for man, 

 dividing its time, if not prevented, between the garbage can, 

 the horse stable, the privy 'box, the milk pitcher, the sugar 

 bowl, fruits, confectionery, and other foods which may be 

 exposed unprotected, it has ^been demonstrated for a fact that 

 the fly in the capacity of a disease carrier causes more suffer- 

 ing than any other one factor with which the physician has to 

 contend, and more deaths than war. 



The house fly is the one great factor in the spread of typhoid 

 fever and may also at times carry tuberculosis, cholera, dysen- 

 tery and summer complaint. When we realize that one single 

 fly can carry upon its body millions of bacteria any one of 

 which may be capable of causing disease the importance of 

 keeping all foods covered and protected from flies becomes 

 at once apparent. These statements are not the result of 

 imagination or theory, but of facts demonstrated beyond the 

 possibility of a doubt. Example after example can be found 

 in the records of the medical profession and the Boards of 

 Health where epidemics of typhoid fever have been traced 

 directly to tbe spread of the disease by flies. Only a few years 

 ago an epidemic in Colorado in which fifty-five cases of ty- 

 phoid fever occurred, causing three deaths, resulted beyond a 

 doubt from a milk supply which was contaminated by germs 

 conveyed from an open vault to milk by flies. Only last year 



