24 LOSS THROUGH INSECTS THAT CAREY DISEASE. 
flic- coming from the excreta of typhoid patients. Tlio prevalence of 
typhoid fever in the concent rat ion camps of the United State- Army 
in the summer of L898 brought about the appointment of an army 
board of medical officers consisting of Drs. Walter Reed, V. S. Army, 
Victor ( '. Vaughan, U. S. Volunteers, and E. O. Shakespeare. U. S. 
Volunteers, to investigate the causes. The abstract of the report of 
this board, published in L900, contains (p. l<\) the following conclu- 
sions with regard to flies: 
"Fins undoubtedly served as carriers of the infection. 
" Flies swarmed over infected fecal matter in the pits and then 
visited and fed upon the food prepared for the soldiers at the mess 
tents. In some instances where lime had recently been sprinkled 
over the content- of the pits, flies with their feet whitened with lime 
were seen walking- over the food. 
••It i- possible for the fly to carry the typhoid bacillus in two 
ways. In the first place, fecal matter containing the typhoid germ 
may adhere to the fly and be mechanically transported. In the 
second place, it is possible that the typhoid bacillus may be carried 
in the digestive organs of the fly and may be deposited with its 
excrement." 
Doctor Vaughan, of the board just mentioned, in a paper read be- 
fore the annual meeting of the American Medical Association at 
Atlantic City. X. J.. June 6, 1900. gives the following additional rea- 
sons for believing that flies were active in the dessemination of 
typhoid fever: 
" Officers whose mess tents were protected by means of screens 
suffered proportionately less from typhoid fever than did those 
whose tents were not so protected. 
' ; T}'phoid fever gradually disappeared in the fall of 1S0S. with 
the approach of cold weather, and the consequent disabling of the fly." 
There were also many important conclusions which bear upon the 
fly question. For example, it was shown that every regiment in the 
United States service in 1898 developed typhoid fever, nearly all of 
them within eight weeks after assembling in camps. It not only 
appeared in every regiment in the service, but it became epidemic 
both in small encampments of not more than one regiment and in the 
larger ones consisting of one or more corps. All encampments 
located in the Xorthern as well as in the Southern Stan- exhibited 
typhoid in epidemic form. The niia-matic theory of the origin of 
typhoid fever and the pythogenic theory" were not supported by 
the investigations of the commission, but the doctrine of the specific 
a Tliis theory is founded upon the belief that the colon germ may undergo a 
ripening process by means <>f which its virulence is so increased and altered 
thai il may l>o converted into the typhoid bacillus or at least may become the 
active agent in the causation of typhoid fever. 
