W. Grant Hague

The Dangerous House Fly—Diseases Transmitted by Flies—Homes Should be Carefully Screened and Protected—The Breeding Places of Flies—Special Care Should be Given to Stables, Privy Vaults, Garbage, Vacant Lots, Foodstuffs, Water Fronts, Drains—Precautions to be Observed—How to Kill Flies—Moths—What Physicians are Doing—Radium—X-Ray Treatment and X-Ray Diagnosis—Aseptic Surgery—New Anesthetics—Vaccine in Typhoid Fever—"606"—Transplanting the Organs of Dead Men into the Living—Bacteria that Make Soil Barren or Productive—Anti-meningitis Serum—A Serum for Malaria in Sight.

THE DANGEROUS HOUSE FLY

Mothers should become thoroughly acquainted with the grave consequences which may result from fly-infected foods, and from the possible carriage of disease by means of flies, even where foods are carefully protected. The transmission of the following diseases by means of flies has been conclusively proven: typhoid fever, tuberculosis, cholera, Oriental plague, inflammation of the eyelids, serious infection of wounds. Summer diarrhea of children is also transmitted in this way.

Typhoid fever and summer diarrhea of children in this country, and cholera and Oriental plague in the countries in which those diseases exist, may be transmitted through the various foods that are eaten in an uncooked state, if infected by flies, through cooked foods infected by flies after the process of cooking, through drinking water which has been infected by flies, and through milk similarly infected. Fruits are especially likely to be infected by the small fruit fly commonly found around markets and stands. Fish may be infected by flies, and in consequence will undergo rapid decomposition. Decomposition caused in this way has resulted in many cases of diarrhea and dysentery. What is commonly known as fly speck is the excreta of the fly, and frequently contains virulent disease germs. These specks are often found on foodstuffs that have not been properly protected.

Transmission of disease may also occur by the infection of open wounds through contact with infected flies. This is true of all pus formation in wounds. The simple contact of a fly infected with the disease may cause Oriental plague, sore eyes, and possibly granular eyelids. A fly infected with dysentery or typhoid fever may cause either of these diseases by simply coming in contact with the lips of susceptible persons.

The fly in the house should be relentlessly pursued and destroyed. The house which is carefully screened and protected from flies is infinitely safer than one not so protected. In the spring of the year the house fly begins to take on life. Eggs which were laid the preceding fall begin to hatch. At first the fly is only a little worm wriggling in some pile of filth. The eggs are usually laid and the grub developed in a manure pile or some mass of garbage or other filth. Before the grub develops into the fly it is easily destroyed. If everything in and about the house were kept scrupulously clean, and if every manure pile were kept carefully screened or covered so as to protect it from flies, there would be no difficulty in preventing the fly nuisance. The most effective way to accomplish this is to destroy the breeding places. The importance of this may be seen when it is considered that one fly produces one hundred and twenty-five millions or more of its kind in one season.

Stables.—Manure is by far the commonest material in which the fly lays her eggs. All stables should be kept scrupulously clean. No manure should be allowed to accumulate where it will be exposed to flies for even a few minutes. Immediately after it is dropped by an animal, it should be removed and covered. Manure may be treated with considerable quantities of lime without interfering with its fertilizing value, and in this way the development of the eggs laid in it by the flies can be practically prevented. The floors of stables should be thoroughly flushed with water at least once in every twenty-four hours.

Privy Vaults.—Human excrement also affords an excellent breeding place for flies. In army camps the latrines are the points from which much infection is transmitted to troops, and thousands of the men have lost their lives by contracting typhoid fever transmitted in this manner. During the summer time all open vaults and dry closets should be treated continuously with lime, crude creolin or crude carbolic acid, and they should be carefully cleaned out at frequent intervals.

Garbage.—As a medium for the development of flies, garbage may be considered next in importance to excreta. The eggs of the fly hatch in about twenty-four hours, and garbage which is retained in the kitchen for that length of time may contain flies in the grub stage. To prevent this development, all garbage should be covered and pails should be emptied as often as possible. In country districts garbage should be burned in the kitchen or buried in the garden at frequent intervals, twenty-four hours being the maximum time it should be retained.

Vacant Lots.—Vacant lots frequently contain appreciable quantities of organic matter in a state of decomposition, affording favorable breeding places for flies. These vacant areas should be maintained in a state of scrupulous cleanliness.

Foodstuffs.—In order to prevent contamination of foodstuffs, all foods that are eaten in the raw state and all foods that are exposed for sale after having been cooked should be carefully protected from contact with flies, by screens or covers.

A point where rapid development of flies takes place is along the city's water front. This is due to the fact that many of the sewers do not discharge below the level of the water. All open drains should be eliminated, whether they be sewers, private house drains or drains from cess-pools.

Precautions to be Observed.—Keep the house free from flies. Every fly should be considered a possible disease carrier and should be destroyed.

Keep the windows of the house, especially the kitchen windows, carefully screened during the spring, summer and autumn.

Protect children from exposure to flies, particularly children who are ill, and do not allow nursing bottles to be exposed to flies.

Protect milk and other foodstuffs from contact with flies.

Keep the garbage outside of the house, carefully covered.

Abolish open drains near dwelling places.

Stable manure should be frequently sprinkled with lime and kept covered.

Earth closets and privy vaults should be treated with lime, crude creolin or crude carbolic acid at frequent intervals.

Earth closets and privy vaults should be cleaned frequently in order to prevent excrement accumulating to an undue extent.

To Kill Flies.—Dissolve one dram of bichromate of potash in two ounces of water, add a little sugar to this solution and put some of it in shallow dishes and place about the house. Sticky fly paper and fly traps may also be used.

To clean the room where there are many flies, burn pyrethrum powder (Persian insect powder). This stupefies the flies and in this condition they may be swept up and burned.

Probably the best and simplest fly killer is a weak solution of formaldehyde in water (two teaspoonfuls to the pint). This solution should be placed in plates or saucers throughout the house. Ten cents' worth of formaldehyde, obtained in the drug store, will last an ordinary family all summer. Don't smell formaldehyde in the pure state; it is very pungent and strong. In the solution of the strength used for flies it has no offensive smell. It is fatal to disease organisms, and is practically non-poisonous except to insects. Flies will not stay in the house when this solution is around.

Moths.—Late spring and early summer is the time to guard against moths and beetles. Many of these fabric-destroying insects are brought into the house on flowers.

May and June are especially bad months, as both moths and beetles are only dangerous to fabrics in their young or grub stage.

These insects will destroy almost anything from coarse rugs to the finest of ball gowns and dress suits. Carpets that are rarely swept and garments that are seldom disturbed are most liable to damage.

The substitution of the frequently removed and easily cleaned rugs for carpets will greatly lessen the danger from the destructive moth and beetle grubs. Carpets laid on tight floors are much less liable to injury than where numerous cracks furnish safe retreats for the insects. Tarred paper under a carpet is an excellent preventive.

All clothes presses should be thoroughly cleaned at frequent intervals. The garments should be removed, aired and vigorously brushed. Any larvÆ which are not dislodged in this way should be destroyed. It is a bad plan to keep odds and ends of woolen or other materials in attics where these pests can breed and thus spread to more valuable articles.

Spraying with benzine two or three times during hot weather is a good way of preventing injury to furniture or carriage upholstery and other articles which are in storage or not in use for a long time. If you are certain that woolens and furs are free from the pests they may be stored in safety by placing them in tight paste board boxes and sealing the covers firmly with gummed paper.

Both moths and carpet beetles are harmless at a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit—a fact very well known to advantage by the large fur storage companies. They cannot survive furthermore a temperature of 120 decrees if subjected to it for about twenty minutes.

What Physicians are Doing.—It is desirable that the ordinary non-medical individual should know what the science of medicine is doing and what it is accomplishing.

During the past fifteen years the art of curing and preventing disease has taken on giant strides. The man or woman most ready to question the accomplishments and the ability of the humble family physician or the motive of the science of medicine, is the one who appreciates least that it is due to the skill and intelligence of the medical men of to-day that he owes his comfort, his health, and his freedom from pestilence, plague and disease. Unthinking people laud and praise some upstart whose ability lies in his faculty to fool the gullible, or they will rush to seek the false aid of some nondescript science, because it is popular and well advertised, while they pass by or ignore the men whose labors have made the world what it is, and who alone possess the ability to intelligently wage the battle in the interest of humanity against disease.

The medical profession has repeatedly pointed out that there are, on an average, six hundred thousand lives lost every year in the United States from preventable disease and accidents. Six hundred thousand lives which medical science has at hand the remedy to save, but which the medical profession sacrificed because of inadequate legislation. Few people can comprehend just what six hundred thousand lives mean. Let us put it in another way. There are destroyed by preventable disease and accidents every day American lives equal in number to the crews of two battle ships, equal in three months to more than the total combined numbers of the Army and Navy of the United States; equal in one year to more than the total number of lives lost in all our wars since the Declaration of Independence.

The Titanic disaster shocked the public for a moment, and seemed to impress them as though it was a terrible and unheard of waste of good human lives. Yet in the loss of life due to preventable causes we have in this country every day in the year a destruction of our citizens exceeding in magnitude that which occurred when the Titanic sank. Think of it! A Titanic disaster a day, and yet the public does not rise up and demand in a spirit of anger and determination that steps be taken at once to put an end to this appalling and unnecessary waste of lives.

Under modern hygienic conditions, the average length of existence for an individual in Great Britain has increased ten years in the last half century. Among all the enlightened and advanced nations, the expectation of the individual for long survival is greater. Since the appearance of uncheckable and epidemic disorders is less frequent and the percentage of cures is greater.

Since quarantine has been regularly established and the sewage system made efficient in large cities, and since the sanitary plumbing laws have been made compulsory, the general death rate has decreased enormously. These regulations have been the product of regularly educated medical or sanitary experts. No 'ism or 'ology has ever established any scientific principle which has contributed to the general welfare of the people. We no longer fear the plague, or typhus or yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, consumption, and other diseases which once were a constant menace to the race. The plague, for example, is practically limited to the Far East, where modern methods cannot evidently be introduced efficiently. At one time it periodically devastated Europe, where it cannot now get a foothold because of the introduction of sanitary systems and hygienic principles.

Tetanus or lockjaw and hydrophobia are now amenable to cure while formerly all cases were practically fatal. The mortality of diphtheria has been reduced more than fifty per cent. Antiseptic precautions in surgical cases, first introduced by the famous surgeon, Lord Lister, have made possible and successful operations that formerly could not be undertaken, thus broadening the whole field of surgical possibilities. The Boer war and the war with Spain proved this truth in a way that could not be denied. Smallpox is almost a medical curiosity in New York City, where it once was a scourge. The mortality of childbirth has been reduced to about one-fifth of what it was by the introduction of antiseptics and anesthetics. The new methods of making and preparing drugs, the sterilization and inspection of milk, the methods devised for the care of and preparation of infant foods have all enormously contributed to checking disease, to preventing disease, and to increasing the length of life and its happiness.

These are all facts which may be proved by any one, no matter how incompetent they may be. If we were to give up all these hard earned victories, cease to investigate or experiment, deny the existence of disease, and depend upon the questionable methods of hysterical emotionalists we would soon find ourselves facing all the horrors of the past. Can we afford to lose the priceless benefits we have achieved and are attaining? Can we sit still and permit the profession of medicine, which has always contained the best of the race in its membership, the best intellects, the most sympathetic and unselfish characters, the noblest and most steadfast souls, to be maligned and assailed, to have its means of well-doing assaulted and threatened, when we know that it should be supported and protected for the sake of all it has done in the past in the interest of humanity?

Every mother should be acquainted with these facts so that she may lend her influence in behalf of honest effort and honest inquiry.

The following summary comprises a brief review of what medicine has been doing in the recent past:

Radium.—This element was discovered about fifteen years ago by Professor and Mme. Curie. It possesses the wonderful property of giving out inexhaustible stores of energy. It virtually possesses the property of perpetual motion. Professor Becquerel was the first one to suggest that it might possess therapeutic or healing powers. The suggestion came to him in a curious way. He carried a tube of radium in his vest pocket and was severely burnt as a consequence. The incident suggested to him that, if radium could attack healthy tissue in such a short time, it should be able to similarly attack diseased tissue. Experiments were soon instituted, and are still being conducted to exactly define its curative value and scope.

It was hailed as a cure for cancer and other serious conditions, but we have found that it is not a cure for these ailments. It is, however, exceedingly valuable in the treatment of certain skin diseases. In lupus, epithelial tumors, ulcers, papillomata, angiomata and pruritus, it is being widely and successfully used. It was later discovered that it can quickly kill disease-producing bacteria. It is also well known that it will efficiently purify water.

X-Ray Treatment and X-Ray Diagnosis.—Professor Roentgen gave to the world an exceedingly valuable discovery in the X-Ray. He discovered that a certain form of electrical energy, when applied in a certain way, would produce shadows that differentiated between a certain degrees of opacity. For example, it would, if directed upon the human hand, produce shadows that clearly indicated whether the substance through which the rays passed was bone or muscle. The chief value of the X-Rays has been found to be this property rather than any healing value which has been attributed to them. The fact that these shadows can be photographed has rendered them of supreme value in surgery and medicine. Previously it was essential that the surgeon should depend upon his own diagnosis, upon what he could learn from his sense of touch and from surrounding conditions. With the X-Rays at his disposal he can quite eliminate the personal equation. His pictures are precise and mathematically accurate; he can prove the truth of his diagnosis before he cuts. We can take pictures of fractured bones and from what we learn we can immediately tell how they should be set to attain the very best results. We can actually tell if there is a stone in the kidney before we subject the patient to a serious operation. We can actually take pictures of the stomach at various stages of digestion and tell what disease affects the individual with a degree of precision that was not possible before the X-Rays were introduced. These examples only suggest its use. There are a multiplicity of uses for these as yet unknown rays which have greatly aided in diagnosis and consequently in successful treatment.

Aseptic Surgery.—The utility of the aseptic principle in surgery was demonstrated by the Japanese army surgeons during the war with Russia in 1904-1905. Their success in preventing deaths from suppurating wounds amazed the world. Their method was to discard the use of antiseptics and to depend upon absolutely clean instruments, dressings and hands. The most terrible wounds healed under this method without festering. This is, of course, the method in vogue to-day all over the civilized world. The Japanese did not discover aseptic surgery, but they were the first to put it to actual test in a large way. The old method was to depend upon drugs to kill the germs which might find their way into wounds and operations. To-day we prevent the germs from getting into the wound and depend upon nature to do the rest.

New Anesthetics.—Several important advances have been made in methods of giving anesthetics and in the nature of the products used. Temporary unconsciousness with electricity was induced in 1909 by Dr. Stephane Leduc. Stovaine was invented by Dr. Jonnesco, of Bucharest. He injected it into the spinal cord after the method made famous by Biers with cocaine in 1899. Dr. W. S. Schley invented novocaine for the same purpose. Temporary unconsciousness was accomplished by the use of epsom salts injected into the spinal cord by Dr. Samuel J. Meltzer. All of these efforts to discover a harmless anesthetic by spinal injection were made possible by investigations and experiments of Dr. J. Leonard Corning, of New York, who worked along this line as far back as 1885. The most revolutionary discovery, however, was that of Dr. S. J. Meltzer at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, when he inserted a tube into the windpipe, through which he pumped the anesthetic into the lungs. While doing this he at the same time pumped oxygen to aerate the blood, thus ensuring the patient against possible accident during the course of difficult and tedious operations on the lungs and heart.

Vaccine in Typhoid Fever.—Inasmuch as typhoid fever has played an important part in the conduct of all wars, it has always been a source of much careful study by military and naval surgeons in every civilized country in the world. We had not, however, reached a stage when it was possible to hope for its extermination until medical science began to appreciate the possibilities of vaccine therapy. The Cuban, Boer and Russian wars, because of the terrible experiences of the soldiers with typhoid in each of them, stimulated inquiry along the line of discovering a serum of vaccine that would be effectual against it. American, British, French and Japanese military and naval surgeons instituted experiments simultaneously to discover an anti-typhoid vaccine. In the fall of 1909, American army surgeons were experimenting with a serum at Washington and on Governor's Island with success, but the first public announcement of an absolutely successful vaccine was made by Captain Vincent of the French navy on June 20th, 1910, before the AcadÉmie de Medicine in Paris. The final success of the anti-typhoid serum has been conclusively proved by elaborate tests upon soldiers and sailors in many nations.

It is difficult for the ordinary individual to appreciate the significance and importance of a discovery of this character and magnitude. When one thinks calmly of the thousands and thousands of men who have lost their lives during wars because of typhoid epidemics, and of the thousands of others who have returned home practically invalided for life from the same cause, it is possible to, at least, conceive of the benefit to the race such a discovery promises. And when we learn that the discovery is a product of the same principle or method which gave to the world a cure for smallpox, diphtheria and syphilis, we must begin to believe that the medical profession is on the path which is unlimited in its field of promise so far as efficient treatment is concerned. Yet to-day we have people who do not believe in vaccination or in anti-diphtheritic serum. We may not live to see the time, but it is not far distant in the opinion of men qualified to speak with authority, when every disease will be amenable to the serum therapy, and when drugs will virtually be discarded by the human race.

"606."—One of the most important discoveries in the history of medicine was recently given to the world by Dr. Paul Ehrlich.

He called it "606," because it was the 606th experiment he had made with the same end in view. It was designed with the purpose of curing the most terrible disease known to man, syphilis. The name of the remedy is salvarsan. That it will do all that was first claimed for it is still doubtful, but salvarsan and its improvements, neosalvarsan, etc., are accepted by the profession as by far the best treatment yet devised for this dread disease. It points the way for improvement along the same line to an ultimate specific.

Transplanting the Organs of Dead Men Into Living Men.—To take from a recently dead individual a kidney, or a bone, or an artery, and by immersing them in certain fluids thereby keeping them alive indefinitely, and later transplanting them in the body of a living individual so that they will continue to live and perform their function in the new environment, is a revolutionary and a seemingly incredible performance. Yet Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, New York, has accomplished this wonderful task. The smallest imagination can picture the possibilities of this kind of surgery, but, inasmuch as the discovery is so recent and the opportunities for testing it upon human beings are so relatively few, that time alone can tell how far it may be possible to go.

Anti-Meningitis Serum.—Another important discovery that has emanated from the Rockefeller Institute is the Anti-Meningitis serum. The death rate from spinal meningitis, before the introduction of the serum, was 70 per cent., the use of the serum has reduced this percentage to 30. We owe this important contribution to Dr. Simon Flexner.

A Serum for Malaria Now Possible.—Dr. C. C. Bass, of Tulane University, has succeeded in extracting malaria-producing parasites from human blood and keeping them alive in test tubes. This feat had been long attempted but never before with success. The significance of this achievement is that it is the first step toward preparing a serum that will give immunity to malaria.