CORRESPONDENCE

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 4349, 21 April 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

Disinfectants and Disease.

(To the Editor.)

Sir., — Your excellent leading article in Saturday's Stab upon the present provalence of typhoid fever, mid upon the use of cheap and effective disinfectants, is thoroughly well-timed, and will do much to rouee the attention of your readers to the necessity of prevention of disease. I wish to call all notice to one point in the management of the sick which is often overlooked. I mean tho important part that flies play in the dissemination of contagious disease. It has long been known by medical men and travellers that the ophthabuia which is the great local plague of Egypt, is spread from child to child and from adult to adult by tho swarms of flies which beset the miserable victims of this virulent inflammation. From lack of exact microscopic observation wo are not able to measuro the amount of mischief done by these insocts in any warm season. But, as naturalists know, the house-fly feeds upon whatever albuminous and saccharine fluid it can pick up from any living or dead protoplasm. And there oan be no doubt that " pus," that is, " matter," may bo freely conveyed by its proboscis and legs from wounds, ulcers, eruptions, and purulent inflammations of the eye or nose to any sound but sensitive mucous surface, for instance, tho corners of the eyes of a sleeping infant, thus exciting disease of a similar kind to that from which the matter was brought, In our semi-tropical climate, where we need our windows and doors open for several months of the year, these occurrences may often take place. I suggest, therefore, to those who nurse any invalid who has open sores or purulent inflammations, or who expectorates matter, to be careful to keep the flies off, not by the ceaseless labour of fanning, but by arranging a light frame over the head and face of the sufferer covered with mosquito netting or muslin. And in the case of consumptive patients, the expectorated matter should be received in a proper spitting cup, which is Inaccessible to the flies. Furthermore, any fly tpat biteß should be killed, for they are pojsoiibearing.—Yours faithfully, J. Moore, M.D. •■