p. 12 | Why Dread the Fly?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 29, 1906

Why Dread the Fly?

THE fly is usually considered simply as an annoyance, and its exclusion from the home is not so rigidly insisted upon as it would be if all were acquainted with its dangerous character as a conveyor of microbes.

Dr. Hayward, bacteriologist of the Michigan School Board of Health, recently made an examination of the “specks” of flies that were seen gathering about a cuspidor used by a tubercular patient, and found them to be full of tubercle bacilli. As a consequence of the presence of the fly, the bacilli of this dread disease are carried everywhere.

Imprisoned flies fed on tubercular sputum died in two or three days, while those fed on milk lived from eight to ten days. When the “specks” or feces of these flies were rubbed up with sterile water and injected into guinea-pigs, the pigs developed genuine cases of consumption.

The suppression of the housefly is a most important means of restricting tuberculosis and other deadly diseases.—Selected.