The house fly as a disease carrier : and how controlled / by W. E. Britton, State Entymologist.

  • Britton, Wilton Everett, 1868-1939.
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The house fly as a disease carrier : and how controlled / by W. E. Britton, State Entymologist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The conditions named above are common not only on farms and in country villages, but also around the outskirts and in certain sections of many large cities. The daily visits of milk carts, fish and meat carts and bakers' wagons, going from house to house and followed in each case by a swarm of flies, ensures a distribution of the insects, as a few remain at each stopping place, and others join the nomadic group. If disease-bearing flies exist at any of these stopping places, they are apt to be distributed along the route, and the disease may thus be spread. Lumber camps, construction camps, and summer camps at the shore or in the mountains are particular points of danger, be- cause on account of their temporary nature sanitary improve- ments are lacking, and the gathering of people from different parts of the country introduces an additional element of danger which might not exist if all came from the same locality. Then, too, the laborers in lumber camps and on construction work are not posted in sanitary matters, and are apt to be careless in the disposal of refuse. The owners and managers, unfortunately, are seldom considerate of these matters, but are probably more anxious about the execution of their contracts and the obtain- ing of their profits than about the health of their men. In such cases the local health officer should assume and maintain strict supervision of the sanitation of the camps. Carloads of stable manure from the large cities are drawn through towns, villages and cities, and often allowed to stand, for several days on the sidings. These are prolific breeding places of flies in warm weather. Banish Flies from the Sick Eoom. Under no conditions should flies be permitted in the sick room. They disturb the patient while he sleeps, and annoy him when he wakes. They crawl over his food and sip from his drink. To say the least, it is certain that they have just come from the stable, the swill tub, or the privy, and the reflection on their close association with filth, and their part as disease carriers, will not aid the patient on the road to recovery. More-