CLEANER FOOD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16200, 25 November 1926, Page 11

CLEANER FOOD

AND THE UNWANTED FLY For the welfare of the public nothing can be of more importance than the effective protection of food against all forms of contamination. In general, the presence of the liouso fly, and still more of the blue bottle, may be regarded as proof that insufficient precautions are taken. Ono of the greatest authorities ou the house fly has said that these creatures “certainly perform a valuable service; they indicate the presence of tilth and are the sanitarian’s danger signals-—his red lamps, in fact.” There .are a great deal too many of these danger signals to be seen. The day has long gone by when people looked at the house fly through the eighteenth century’s indulgent spectacles. The verse, once popular: Busy, curious, thirsty fly Drink with me, and drink as 1. Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip, and sip it up. now arouses only feelings of disgust, bccauso the fly is well known as a disease-bearer.

What is needed to effect a prompt improvement is public pressure, combined with an extension of the statutory rules, which should be clearly and unambiguously worded. All food should be protected against dust and insects, and it can easily be protected if the proper attention to cleanliness is shown and reasonable precautions are applied. The fly is much less common than it was ten years or twenty years ago. The motor-ear has partly freed our cities from the. stables and manure-heaps which were the favorite breeding grounds of these insects. That is all to the good. But what is wanted is energetic action by everybody to make the fly’s life impossible within range of human habitations.

Highly promising results in the way of fly extirpation have been obtained in Italy by Professor Berlese. Refuse heaps are sprayed at intervals of five days with a mixture of sugar, water and. arsenic; and in shops where flies cause trouble bunches of ferns and branches of evergreens that have been sprayed with this mixture are placed, not/of course, m contact with food. Much can be done by washing window panes and woodwork from time to time with weak carbolic acid, though that has so powerful a smell that it; is liable to affect food, or witli formaldehyde, which is destructive of insects and lms not so strong and disagreeable a smell. If the public avoids shops which are careless in this important matter of cleanly food an important step forward will bo taken. —London Daily Mail.