tii i. TYPHOID n.v. 01: HOUSE FLY. B5 
A^ a matter of Tact, large sums of money arc spent annually in the 
protection of property in the [Jnited States. Large sums of money 
arc spent also in health matter-: but the expenditure for protection 
from flies is \'o\'\ small and is misdirected. There is much justifies 
tion for the following criticism published editorially in the Journal 
of the American Medical Association for August 22, L908, under the 
caption, "National Farm Commission and Rural Sanitation:" 
"The President calls attention to the fact that all efforts to aid the 
farmers have hitherto been directed to improving their material 
welfare, while the man himself and his family have been neglected. 
Nowhere i- this more marked than in the attitude of the General 
Government in matters relating to sanitation. It is a trite saying 
that whereas the Government, through the Department of Agricul- 
ture, aids the farmer generously in carina- for the health of his hogs, 
sheep, etc.. it does nothing for his own health. The Government 
issues notices to the farmer of the injury done to his crop- by the 
cotton-boll weevil and the potato bugs and how to combat them, hut 
the injury the mosquito does in spreading malaria to the people who 
pick the cotton and hoe the potatoes is not impressed on him. The 
fact that horseflies may carry anthrax to his cattle is dealt with at 
considerable length, but the diseases which the house fly spreads to 
the milk and to the farmer's family attract practically no attention. 
How to build a hogpen or a sanitary barn is the subject of a number 
of government publications, but how to build a sanitary privy which 
will prevent the spread of typhoid, hook worm, and many other dis- 
eases is regarded as of strictly local interest." 
But this criticism is not entirely justified, since there was published 
by the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, in 1900, a Farmers' Bulletin, entitled "How Insects 
Affect Health in Rural Districts," a in which all of these points men- 
tioned by the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation have been touched upon, and at the date of present writing 
102.000 copies of this bulletin have been distributed among the 
people. Moreover, a number of years ago a circular 6 was published 
on the subject of the house fly, calling attention to it- dangers and 
giving instructions such as are covered in a general way in this 
article, and smio 18,000 copies of this circular have also been dis- 
tributed. This is an indication that the General Government is by 
no mean- blind to the people's needs in such matter- as we have 
under consideration, but further work should be done. That the 
English Government is awaking to the same need is shown by the 
fact that, in the parliamentary vote of the present year in aid of 
" Farmers' Bulletin No. L55. 
b Circnlar No. 35, Bureau of Entomology, L891, afterwards reissued in revised 
form as Circular No. 71. 
