FLIES AND DISEASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2836, 20 January 1925, Page 1

FLIES AND DISEASE.

“May I ask through your columns if it may not be possible that the plague of house-flies many people are suffering from this hot weather has something to do with the spread of disease?” asks a correspondent “J. 8.” in the Wellington Post. The writer adds: “If it is true that Professor Kirk banished flies from Trentham during the war, would it be possible to persuade the Military Department to broadcast the remedy? I hope that the suggestion may meet the eye of somebody in charge.” On the same subject “The Post’s” Dunedin correspondent telegraphed that a letter published in the “Star” alleges that it “has been proved conclusively” that infantile paralysis is the direct result of eating fruit from trees that have been sprayed during the summer months. Dr. Crawford, Health Officer, replies that the cause of infantile paralysis is unknown, but investigations prove that it is probably due to au organism which is ultra-mic-roscopic, and which probably gains entrance to the system by way of the nose and throat. With regard to the spraying of trees, lie says that an arsenical spray may cause peripheral neuritis, which in some eases may simulate infantile paralysis, but is not infantile paralysis. Flies are suspected as a means of transmitting the disease.