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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5207, 23 November 1927, Page 2

A number of residents of Paeroa and district journeyed by train or motor-car to the A and P. Show at Te Aroha tp-day, which is People’s Day.

‘•‘He’s probably the greatest communicator of disease with which we are acquainted,” said Dr. T. H. Easterfield, Director of the Cawthron Institute Nelson, speaking of. the domestic’ fly, at Christchurch. “For dessert he goes for sugar,” said the doctor. “He can’t eat sugar unless it is dissolved. So he vomits on it. After a time he swallows a part of it and leaves the rest. Where flies are in great numbers infantile paralysis, summer diarrhoea, and a large, number of other troubles inevitably follow.” Dr. Easterfield put in a graph in connection with, thq epidemic of slimmer diarrhoea in 1924 in Manchester. “You will see from that that as the number of flics increase 1 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. We had a perfectly similar case in New Zealand in the military camps during 1916. The position became alarming unt'l the matter was very carefully studied by Professor Kirk. He killed 250,000 flies in the cookhouse in one, night. With the reduction in the number of flies there was a perfectly parallel reduction in the admissions to hospital. When precautions were neglected the flies increased, and also the number of admissions to hospital. It was all due to the fact that the stable manure was distributed oyer the, land.”