Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1916 — PERIL OF FLY NOT FULLY REALIZED [ARTICLE]

PERIL OF FLY NOT FULLY REALIZED

By DR. SAMUEL G. DIXON

Commissioner of Health of Pennsylvania Reams have been printed about the danger from the house fly. Despite all that has been said it is a self-evident fact that people do not understand how real is the danger from these pests. If they did a single season would be sufficient to wipe out the dangerous nuisances. Let people once understand the part that the fly plays in the transmission of disease and they will look upon anyone who maintains a condition which breeds them as a public enemy to be summarily dealt with. There is much wasted advice about swatting the fly and trapping the fly. What we must learn to do is to exterminate it by doing away with all breeding places. While ’it has not been definitely proven what the fly has to do with infantile paralysis, we have good reason to believe that it takes a part in the spread of the disease. That they can and do carry the germs’" of typhoid fever and other diseases we know. It is a wise mother who screens the baby’s crib. ' - Thousands of children under one year of age die annually who would be saved if the fly were eliminated.