24 LOSS THROUGH [NSECTS THAT CARRY DISEASE. 
flies coming from the excreta of typhoid patient-. The prevalence of 
typhoid fever in the concentration camp- of the United State- Army 
in the summer of L898 brought about the appointment of an army 
typhoid commission consisting of Drs. Walter Reed, U. S. Army. 
Victor M. Vaughan, U. S. Volunteers, and E. (). Shakespeare, CJ. S. 
Volunteers. A paper read by Doctor Vaughan before the annual 
meeting of the American Medical Association at Atlantic City, X. J., 
June 6, L900, contained the following conclusions with regard to 
flies: 
"27. Flies undoubtedly served as carriers of the infection. 
"My reasons Tor believing that flies were active in the dissemina- 
tion of typhoid may be stated as follows: 
" a. Flies -warmed over infected fecal matter in the pits and then 
visited and fed upon the food prepared for the soldiers at the mess 
tent-. In some instances where lime had recently been sprinkled 
over the contents of the pits, flies with their feet whitened with lime 
were seen walking over the food. 
" b. 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. 
" c. Typhoid fever gradually disappeared in the fall of 1898, with 
the approach of cold weather, and the consequent disabling of the fly. 
" It is 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 he carried 
in the digestive organs of the fly and may be deposited with its 
excrement."' 
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 corp>. All encampments 
located in the Northern as well as in the Southern States exhibited 
typhoid in epidemic form. The miasmatic 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 
"This theory is founded upon the belief that the colon germ may undergo a 
ripening process by means of which its virulence is so increased and altered 
thai it may be converted into the typhoid bacillus <>r at least may become the 
active agent in the causation of typhoid fever. 
