The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1909 CONOERNING FLIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2652, 6 November 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6,1909 CONOERNING FLIES.

Time was when the übiquitous and insignificant fly was treated as merely a harmless nuisance, but ordinary observation and scientific research have proved that this diminutive insect is one of the greatest curses that afflict the community. Unfortunately the fact has not yet had-time to soak itself into the minds of the mass of the public. We are still inclined to treat the fly as our forefathers treated him, namely by ignoring him. We watch him light upon the joint of meat at table, linger on the sugar or the jam, and we take it all as a matter of course. If two or three, or even half a dozen of the species drop into 1 the milk we skim them out and immediately after pour from the same jug a drink of milk for the children. It is all done so easily, so casually, that no one gives the matter a moment’s thought. Yet those flies carried a trail of filth over the meat, the sugar and the jam, and before being rescued from a milky grave they polluted the milk so that it became a dangerous food to give to any children. In this connection it may be well to point Out that milk provides an ideal medium for the growth and multiplication of the filthy bacteria placed therein by flies. To look at him the fly certainly seems as harmless as he was long supposed to be. Unfortunately his looks helm him. He is reared in filth —(preferably in manure heaps or any form.of stinking rubbish —and he spends a large part of his life in investigating the smelly surroundings of his little world. Thus when he is seen, giving some cursory attention to the savory contents of the dinner table the odds may be stated as twenty to one that he has just left some foul spot from ■whence his sticky legs have brought their contribution of filth. When these facts are borne in mind it i,s not difficult to understand that medical investigations have proved conclusively that typhoid,, fever is carried from place to place by these little pests. Another fly borne affliction is epidemic diarrhoea which very largely affects infants in hot weather. This has been traced directly to the pollution of the milk given to infants, and here again the fly is the culprit. It would undoubtedly be a very difficult and perhaps an impossible ta,sk to keep flies down to such 'small numbers that they would he no source of danger to human life. But a well-conducted war against flies could but result in a considerable diminution of their number, with a correspondingly satisfactory outcome so far as infantile diarrhea is concerned. In' this connection a- capital article published in to-day’s supplement is worth attention, for the writer gives some very valuable hints as to the best methods to be employed to keep the fly pest within .reasonable bounds. Once the public fully realises, that the fly is the objectionable, filthy member he really is a crusade will he started in all well regulated (households that will make his visits to the dinner table and pantry much less frequent. »—»■ —_ '.au-Lin -