178 THE DANGER OF FLIES 



brought some back from the Tabau River and from 

 other localities in South Arabia. Mr. Newstead has 

 recognized the specimens as belonging to the species 

 Glossina tachinoides. It evidently does not live on big 

 game here, since, except the gazelle, game is absent. 

 The Bedouins say that it bites donkeys, horses, dogs, 

 and man, but not camels or sheep. It is at times so 

 troublesome as to force the natives to shift their 

 camps. 



The common house-fly has been known for some 

 time to be an active agent in the dissemination of 

 bacterial diseases. In intestinal disorders — such as 

 cholera and enteric fevers, which are caused by micro- 

 organisms, the flies convey the bacteria from the 

 dejecta of the sick to the food of the healthy. In the 

 recent war in South Africa they are described in the 

 standing camps as dividing their activities 'between 

 the latrines and the men's mess-tins and jam rations.'* 

 In the Spanish-American War in Cuba, and in the 

 South African War, and in several recent outbreaks 

 of enteric fever in the British army in India, flies have 

 been proved to be the carriers of the Bacillus typhosus. 

 Dr. Veederf writes : 



' In a very few minutes they may load themselves with 

 dejections from a typhoid or dysenteric patient, not yet sick 

 enough to be in hospital or under observation, and carry the 

 poison so taken up into the very midst of the food and water 

 ready for use at the next meal. There is no long roundabout 

 process involved. It is very plain and direct ; yet when 

 thousands of lives are at stake in this way the danger passes 

 unnoticed.' 



Similar records come from the Boer camp at Diyata- 

 lawa in Ceylon. The bacilli are conveyed direct, just 

 as they might be by an inoculating needle. They do 



* Austen, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, vol. ii., 

 1904, pp. 651-667. 



t Medical Record, vol. liy., 1898, pp. 429, 430. 



