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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
before. Straw was burned in the pit at intervals but probably did little 
good as a temperature sufficient to sterilize the pit would have ignited 
the superstructure. A thick oil was supplied the camp for sanitary 
purposes but it was so viscous that the spray pump delivered a thin 
stream only and could not have been efficient as a means of preventing 
fly breeding in the pit. The small latrines received no better or worse 
attention. 
Some of the men purchased cloth netting as a protection while sleep¬ 
ing, and a few strips of tanglefoot were used. The interiors of the cook’s 
tents next to the kitchen were black with resting flies in the evening 
and the cooks at last were forced to abandon the location. The meat 
served was usually in a state of partial putrefaction; for weeks the 
men took little or none of it, much as they needed nourishing food at this 
time. Quarters of beef were sometimes dumped into the sand from the 
supply train and at times lay in the sun for half an hour, inviting the 
oviposition of blow-flies. The meat house was not fly tight, blue-bottle 
flies being at work there, and eventually a new house with walls and 
door of wire cloth was substituted. There was no refrigeration at the 
camp. 
Beginning shortly after the middle of June and lasting throughout 
July the company was visited by an epidemic of dysentery. This 
disease attacked nearly the entire command and greatly weakened the 
men, some of whom were removed to the infirmary at Mimizan-les- 
Bains for treatment which consisted of a diet, principally of black 
coffee. Some days as many as thirty men reported at sick call in the 
morning. 
Conditions about the kitchen steadily got worse. The drinking water 
from the driven well had a strong and disagreeable odor and the atmos¬ 
phere about the building was such that the mess sergeant, who had his 
quarters there, was forced to move. Finally the kitchen floor was 
taken up and the cause of the condition found to be the overflow of the 
covered cesspool which had backed up over the whole area of the kitchen. 
The pipe of the driven well (about 25 feet deep) went down through this 
gray greasy liquid. A new well was put down about 20 feet from the old 
one and another sink hole was dug nearby. It is probable that the 
cesspool overflow served as a prolific source of flies and the strong odor 
probably accounts for the difficulty experienced in ridding the building 
of the pests. 
General orders called attention to the prevalence of dysentery in the 
region and suggested various precautions to be taken against flies, 
