The Modern Plague of Flies
THE following from the Philadelphia Public Ledger gives some information which should be known and put into practise by every housekeeper, particularly those possessing domestic animals:— “So long ago as 1873 Dr. Packard investigated the life history of the common house-fly, and in 1895 the Department of Agriculture instituted experiments for the purpose of controlling the evil. The results may be briefly summed up thus: The house-fly chooses, before all other places, for its eggs the refuse from a horse or cow stable. The blue-bottle deposits its eggs in decaying animal matter. The greenbottle fly selects the refuse from a cow stable; and a troublesome, small, jet-black fly breeds in the dust under carpets. “The question is, How shall we protect ourselves? With regard to the last-named fly, it is simply a matter of domestic cleanliness. With the others, it does not seem to be such a difficult matter, if we will sacrifice a trifling expenditure of labor and money. If all decaying animal matter were destroyed as it ought to be, there would be no blue-bottles to drive philosophers and others mad. If the refuse from stables were treated with chlorid of lime, a very cheap and effective disinfectant, not a single house-fly could survive. The Department of Agriculture authorities found that a pound of chlorid of lime utterly destroyed all eggs in a quarter of a bushel of refuse. It ought to be possible to make a solution so cheaply that all refuse, in town and country, could be treated efficiently, and thus keep down the plague. There appears to be no difficulty in the matter when the refuse is placed in proper buildings; but, of course, if we are so uncivilized as to neglect necessary cleanliness, we must suffer. Why can not we be decent about our domestic animals? Why do we still, in this twentieth century, refuse to improve upon the methods of the kitchen-midden folk? “Dr. Leidy proved long ago that flies were the means of carrying hospital gangrene. Flies caught in a room occupied by a consumptive patient were found to be infected with the bacillus of tuberculosis. That typhoid fever is disseminated by flies is a fact demonstrated by bitter experience in camps. If we really desire to exterminate these destroyers of health and peace, we must exert ourselves to persuade people to be cleanly about domestic animals, to reckon disinfecting among the necessary operations of the stable as well as of the contagious disease hospital. The only modern Moses with rod of might is perfect cleanliness.”