SINS OF THE FLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19799, 21 November 1927, Page 10

SINS OF THE FLY.

CAUSE OF MUCH DISEASE. INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS. '•'He's probably the greatest communicator of disease with which we are acquainted," said Professor T. H Easterfiekl, director of the Cawthron Institute, Kelson, speaking of the domestic fly bofore the Appeal Board in connection with the Waimakariri River at Christchurch last week. " For dessert he goes for sugar," said the doctor. "Ho can't eat dugar unless it is dissolved. So he vomits on it. After a time ho swallows o. part of it and leaves the rest. Where flies are in great numbers infantile paralysis, summer diarrhoea and a large number of their troubles inevitably follow." Dr. Easterfield put in a graph in connection with the epidemic of summer diarrhoea in 1924 in Manchester. "You will see from that that as the number of flies increased so also the number of fatal cases increased; and as the flies were put cut of the way the number of deaths came down/' he said. " You will see that the curves show absolutely remarkable parallels." Professor Easterfield added:—" We fiad a perfectly similar case in New Zealand in the military camps during 1916. The position became alarming until the matter was very carefully studied by Professor Kirk. He killed a quarter of a million flies in the cookhouse in one night. With the reduction iri the number of flies there was a perfectly parallel reduction in the admissions to hospital. When precautions were neglected the flies increased, arid also the number of admissions to hospital. It was all due to the fact that the stable manure was distributed over the land."