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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
nection with the preparation of the history of this regiment it seems 
probable that the influenza epidemic at Lamanchs was the most severe 
in the entire command. 
While there is no experimental evidence on the relationship of the 
house fly to the dysentery epidemic at Lamanchs, the general acceptance 
of the fact that flies are vectors of the disease is sufficient to warrant the 
flies being charged with its spread there. If we ignore the possibility 
that the flies had anything to do with disseminating the influenza and 
pneumonia organisms, we can still indict the insects with being a very 
important contributory cause of the epidemic of the latter diseases. 
The debilitating effect of dysentery, added to the weakening results of 
months of hard labor with insufficient food, accounts, in the writer’s 
opinion, for the really startling fact that the 11th Company was 98% 
sick with influenza and pneumonia and the 45th Company Detachment 
showed a susceptibility of zero. Both had dysentery, but in the case of 
the 11th Company the effect of the disease was to lower the resisting 
power below the danger line. 
No other interpretation of the situation has ever occurred to the 
writer. Immediately following the dysentery, the men were in a con¬ 
dition of subnormal vigor and their physical stamina collapsed in the 
presence of epidemic influenza. It may also be noted that the effect 
of the flies in rendering the food unappetizing, and therefore further 
restricting the inadequate diet, was considerable. 
To whatever value may be placed on the lives as citizens of the nine 
men who died should be added the expense of training and transporting 
them overseas, the lost value of 9 more months of work in France, and 
$90,000 war risk insurance which they carried. The crippling of the 
operations at Lamanchs through dysentery and the entire cessation of 
work during the influenza are also largely chargeable against the house 
fly. 
In view of the 14 years of house fly research and publicity which had 
elapsed since Reed, Vaughn and Shakespeare published their report on 
sanitary conditions in the training camps in the United States during 
the Spanish war, it is both disappointing to consider that those con¬ 
ditions were practically duplicated at Lamanchs and also difficult to 
write a dispassionate account of them. The consequences were different, 
however, and there was no typhoid, due undoubtedly to the innocula- 
tions. The published general and special orders on camp sanitation 
received at Lamanchs were from three principal sources:—headquarters 
of the Base Section, of the Services of Supply, and of the A. E. F.,— 
