THE HOUSE FLY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 346, 18 March 1911, Page 2

THE HOUSE FLY.

Some persons seem to be in doubt as to whether the house fly is a carrier of disease, but investigation show that opinion ia made in ignorance. Sir Hay Lankester, in an article on the subject, says that "the feet and probosics of the common house fly are covered with microbes of all sort?, picked up by his explorations upon ever kind of tilth. At every step which he takes he plants a few dozen microbes, which includes those of infantile diarrhoea, typhoid, and other prevalent diseases. This is easily shown by allowing him to walk over a smooth plate of sterilised nutritive gelatine and preserving it afterwards free from the access of microbes from the air. In 24 hours every footstep of the fly on the gelatine is marked by an abundant and varied crop of microbes, which have multiplied from the individuals let drop by the little pedestrian. There is no doubt whatever that the house fly ia a main source of dissemination of the microbe of infantile diarrhoea and the cause annually of hundreds of thousands of deaths of children in the great cities of Europe and America.