Fly Time

There were 391 new cases of typhoid fever in the U. S. last week--45 in cities, the rest in rural districts. The previous week there were 215 new cases. The disease has become so comparatively rare in the U. S. that many an interne would have difficulty in recognizing the symptoms his textbooks describe. Thirty years ago estimates gave the U. S. 450,000 cases, 45,000 deaths. In 1925 there were about 150,000 cases, 15,000 deaths. The progressive improvement has been in great measure due to public health officers insistently damning and destroying the common house fly which carries the typhoid germ from filth to food.

The fight against the fly has not let up. The Iowa State Department of Health is urging citizens to "swat the fly early and kill THREE MILLION AT A BLOW." In New Haven Health Officer John Levi Rice says: "The only place where a fly has any value is on the end of a fish line."

The U. S. Department of Agriculture, whose agents have learned the educational value of mechanical models,* has a fly 4,000 times the size of the ordinary fly which gets into the kitchen. The colossal insect pokes its proboscis into a heap of "sugar," flaps its wings fearsomely. Blind children have vague ideas about house flies. They feel flies crawling on them, hear their elders talk about fly nuisance. To let blind children know just what a fly looks like the American Foundation for the Blind/- has just had built a big fly model. All the contours, joints, vibrissa, hairs and feelers are there. The Foundation will loan the model fly and an extensive article on the house fly to responsible blind groups. Both the Foundation's and the Department of Agriculture's flies are female. Female flies have their big eyes set farther apart than males.

* Tourists of the U. S. country fairs are Belle, Snuffles, Betsy, Percy and Biddy--all models from the Department. Belle is a cow who waggles her mouth, spurts milk. Snuffles is a sow, Betsy and Percy her bloated shoats. Biddy is a hen who has traveled to England (TIME, Aug. 11, 1930). Biddy and Belle phonographically declare what they like to eat. Snuffles pleads for clean pastures. The shoats squeal.

/- Calvin Coolidge is its honorary president.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.