THE WORLD'S GREATEST PEST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8838, 14 June 1907, Page 1

THE WORLD'S GREATEST PEST.

What is tho chief of the world's pestsi An article by Mr Shipley, of Christ's College, Cambridge, suggests that the common house fly attains this injurious distinction. It is practically cosmopolitan, ranging from Cyprus to New Zealand, from the Cape to Cairo, from Nova Scotia to the Argentine, from Persia to Hong Kong. It is carried all over the world in ships and trains, and seems to be equally at home in the high latitudes of Fininark or in tho humid heat of equatorial Brazil. The diseases which flies convey from man to man are for the most part conveyed mechanically. The proboscis acts as an inoculatory needle, and there is no reason to suppose that the fly suffers from any inconvenience from acting as the vehicle which transfers the disease bacteria. The mouth parts of the fly can pick up the anthrax bacillus. It is also acciised, together with the flea, of transmitting plague—though Dr. Martin's commission puts the chief, if not the sole, responsibility of plague carrier on the flea. It disseminates cholera and inflammatory ophthalmia, *as well as enteric, as many cases in the Spanish-American and South African wars proved. Finally it is very largely responsible for that infection of milk which is one of the principal causes of infantile mortality.