OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 304, 17 September 1921, Page 5

OUR BABIES

(By

"Hygeia.";

Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice theai to maintain an ambulance at tho bottom.” THE HOUSE I’M! 1 Dr. Woods Hutchinson’s remarks with regard to the danger to life and health of the common fly recall the interesting Illustrated lecture delivered by Hr. Champtalouti. Professor of Bacteriology, ptago University, 'at the annual meeting ot the Dunedin brauch of the society, uino years As the fly Reason is approaching, and as the havoc wrought by the. insects is so great.’ and widespread, we think It veil to emphasise the matter by reprinting the newspaper summary of the lecture. A Dangerous Neighbour Dr S. T. Ohamptalonp, Professor of Public Health and Bacteriology, delivered a most informative and arresting lecture, which he had entitled "A Dangerous Neighbour: The House Vlv-” It. was profuseiv illustrated by excellent lantern views; and if the lecturer's desire was to imake this insect an object of horror and loathing he was certainly entirely successful. There were many interesting problems in preventive medicine, he said. »t which both the laboratory worker and the'medical officer of health were working, and one of the most important ot these was tho question of carriage of infection from place to place or from man to man by means of insects, animals, or roan himself. Man himself, though often unaware of it. might harbour typhoid and diphtheria bacilli, and so infect his Relatives and friends, though he himself might be perfectly well. Cuts, and degs all play their part—the latter especially in relation to the disease of hydatis. Tho House Hr a Carrier of Many , Diseases. The common house fly did not restrict its attentions to a single disease, but might be the means of spreading typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, dysentery, infantile diarrhoea, /and parasitic, and other dis oases. If, as he hoped to show, the house fly (Musca domestical could transmit all these diseases, by settling on and dabbling in all sorts of tilth, it would earn the name.of a ''dangerous 'neighbour,” which had been given it bv Dr. I J rudden As that observer remarked: Tt is'not among lions and tigers and reptiles that we have to look for man’s most destructive animal enemy. These mostly stay at home, and mind their own business, and if an unwary man now and then suffers from them it is an even chance that If is his' own fault: hut the house fly wanders about and gets its objectionable person onto or into almost everything Tt breeds chiefly in manure or garbage heaps. It- revels in almost all those things which to the noinial modern man seem dirty, filthy, and disgusting. Then it wanders over the food ,and bodies of men, women, and ''hildrai whenever epportuniflv! offers. This is bad enough, but the worst of it is that the bacteria which are swarming In most of the stuff it eats and dabbles its body and feet in are alive, and when ft feeds on infective material, which it does at every opportunity, these disease bacteria may be carried direct, and in full virulence to the food and persons of the well." In his subsequent remarks there/ might be unsavoury particulars, but he had endeavoured to' gloss them over ns far as possible and to avoid anything more) sensational than was needed to give a true picture of tho part the fly played in its relation to Development and Rapid Reproduction of Flies.

The first slides shown were designed to illustrate the egg, larva, and chrysalis stages. Tho lecturer explained that the cycle from the laying of the eggs to tho perfect insect took 10 to 14 days under favourable conditions, /but at a low tem- ’ perature it might take several weeks. It had been estimated that 1200 flies would issue from a pound of horse _ manure, and that a pair of flier mating in spring might be progenitors of 191 thousand billion flies by late .slimmer. Various investigators had established the fact that flies do not' wander of themselves far from their breading places, so that the presence of these insects in any numbers must indicate tho proximity of undesir- ' able matter in which they can breed. Birds and fowls were useful in keeping down tho fly, not only bv attacking the insect itself, but through their fondness for the larvae which abounded in refuse heaps ... . <