PERIL IN HOUSE FLY
Is Allowed to Spread Bacteria Over Food Supplies.
Duty of Every Community to Spend Money in Warfare Against This Enemy of Mankind.
Washington, D. C.—"The danger of the typhoid or house fly in the carriage of disease has been abundantly demonstrated, and yet it is allowed to breed unrestricted all over the United States; It is allowed to enter freely the houses of the great majority of our people; it is allowed to spread bacteria freely over our food supplies in the markets and in the kitchens and dining rooms of private houses."
Thus writes Dr. L. O. Howard in a communication to the National Geographic society. He continues:
"Even if the typhoid or house fly were a creature difficult to destroy, the general failure on the part of communities to make any efforts whatever to reduce its numbers could properly be termed criminal neglect; but, since it is comparatively an easy matter to do away with the plague of flies, this neglect becomes an evidence of ignorance or of a carelessness in regard to disease-producing filth which to the informed mind constitutes a serious blot on civilized methods of life.
"If we allow the accumulation of filth we will have house flies, and if we do not allow it to accumulate we will have no house flies. With the careful collection of garbage in cans and the removal of the contents at more frequent intervals than ten days, and with the proper regulation of abattoirs, and more particularly with the proper regulation of stables in which horses are kept, the typhoid fly will become a rare species. 