The Dangerous House Fly--Diseases Transmitted by Flies--Homes Should be Carefully Screened and Protected--The Breeding Places of Flies--Special Care Should be Given to Stables, Privy Vaults, Garbage, Vacant Lots, Foodstuffs, Water Fronts, Drains--Precautions to be Observed--How to Kill Flies--Moths--What Physicians are Doing--Radium--X-Ray Treatment and X-Ray Diagnosis--Aseptic Surgery--New Anesthetics--Vaccine in Typhoid Fever--"606"--Transplanting the Organs of Dead Men into the Living--Bacteria that Make Soil Barren or Productive--Anti-meningitis Serum--A Serum for Malaria in Sight.
Mothers should become thoroughly acquainted with the grave consequences which may result from fly-infected foods, and from the possible carriage of disease by means of flies, even where foods are carefully protected. The transmission of the following diseases by means of flies has been conclusively proven: typhoid fever, tuberculosis, cholera, Oriental plague, inflammation of the eyelids, serious infection of wounds. Summer diarrhea of children is also transmitted in this way.
Typhoid fever and summer diarrhea of children in this country, and cholera and Oriental plague in the countries in which those diseases exist, may be transmitted through the various foods that are eaten in an uncooked state, if infected by flies, through cooked foods infected by flies after the process of cooking, through drinking water which has been infected by flies, and through milk similarly infected. Fruits are especially likely to be infected by the small fruit fly commonly found around markets and stands. Fish may be infected by flies, and in consequence will undergo rapid decomposition. Decomposition caused in this way has resulted in many cases of diarrhea and dysentery. What is commonly known as fly speck is the excreta of the fly, and frequently contains virulent disease germs. These specks are often found on foodstuffs that have not been properly protected.
Transmission of disease may also occur by the infection of open wounds through contact with infected flies. This is true of all pus formation in wounds. The simple contact of a fly infected with the disease may cause Oriental plague, sore eyes, and possibly granular eyelids. A fly infected with dysentery or typhoid fever may cause either of these diseases by simply coming in contact with the lips of susceptible persons.