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27
Summer Diarrhoea is always due to contamination of food,
especially milk, by dirt of every description, and it has been proved
that this dirt is almost always conveyed by flies who walk over and
feed on filth and carry infection about on their bodies, legs, and
probosces. Flies spread many diseases in this way, such as
Summer Diarrhoea, Cholera, Consumption, Typhoid Fever, etc.
It is therefore most important to get rid of flies. This is more
easily done if we attack their breeding places, as the following
account of the development of the fly shows.
In the spring the female fly lays her eggs on manure heaps,
ashpits, or any collection of moist refuse, and lays about 120 eggs
at each sitting, of which there may be several. From these eggs in
the course of a few hours, especially in the presence of heat and
moisture, a maggot or grub issues and feeds on the filth it lives in,
and in about five days becomes a chrysalis which is a "minute
rolled up bean-like body" with a hard covering about ¼-inch in
length ; in another five days the fly emerges from the chrysalis and
begins searching for food.
The best way therefore of exterminating flies is to prevent the
accumulation of any dirt in or about the house where flies can breed
or feed.
1.—Keep all food which is not consumed at meal times in a
cool cupboard where flies cannot reach it.
2.— All garbage and vegetable matter which cannot be burnt
should be put in the dustbin and carefully covered.
3.— See that all back yards are properly paved and regularly
swept, so that no dirt will be about.
4.—All manure should be sprinkled with carbolic or some other
disinfectant, and removed daily.
5.— Fly papers and traps are very useful, but it is much more
important not to leave food and other materials about that they can
feed and breed on.
6.—Sugar, treacle, and jams should not be left about uncovered.
7.—-Milk vessels should be carefully covered with a damp cloth
when not in use.
8.—Scrupulous cleanliness in the house, especially where food
is prepared, eaten, or stored, is most important.
9.—Scrupulous cleanliness outside in yards and outhouses is
also very important.
The deaths for the last five years will be found in Table I.
Table II shews the cases of infectious disease notified during
the year.
Table III gives the various causes of death at all ages, and
Table IV those under one year.