DISSEMINATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES BY INSECTS. 
269 
reference to the eyes, certain peculiarities which make them 
more likely to receive contagion in this way than any other 
part of the body. In hot weather flies become thirsty, and 
access to fluid is sometimes difficult ; under the circumstances, 
the eyes offer special temptations, and are especially likely to 
be attacked during sleep. Open wounds offer like and even 
superior attractions, and it may have been the truth that flies 
were the real means of contagion in epidemics of sloughing 
phagedsena, which used to occasionally prevail in our hos¬ 
pitals. 
u In connection with the above speculations, it is of much 
importance to remember that not only the proboscis of the fly 
but its feet may carry contagion, and, further, the period in 
which contagion may live under such conditions is quite un¬ 
known. 
“ Enough of suspicion has been established to make it most 
desirable that in the case of epidemics, spreading of maladies in 
wards or institutions, the most careful endeavors should be 
made to exterminate flies. It may even be a fact that flies are 
sometimes the means of contaminating the drinking water, 
milk, or other articles of food. In any maladies which prevail, 
especially in summer weather, the possibility of their influence 
should be kept in mind.” 
Other authors, Mendini and Bignami, look upon the mos¬ 
quito as the direct agent in the transmission of malaria. 
Eavaran, who has given so much time to the study of ma¬ 
laria, believes that not only is malaria spread by means of the 
mosquitoes, but that other diseases, such as tuberculosis, yellow 
fever, and cholera may also be carried by insects. He also be¬ 
lieves that the bite of the tsetse, glossina morsitans , of Central 
Africa, is particularly dangerous because it inoculates its victim 
with a pathogenic hseinatozoan. 
Dr. Theobald Smith has shown beyond doubt, that the par¬ 
asite of southern cattle fever, a disease popularly known as 
Texas fever, is carried by the cattle-tick, and that when the 
ticks bite the cattle, they inoculate them with the parasite, 
