r is given a most rigid
special inspection, and, if any source of infection can be discovered,
the milk is shut out of New York City until the department is satisfied
that all danger has been removed. One or two lessons of this sort are
enough for a whole county of dairymen. The danger of transmission of
typhoid through milk has been enormously exaggerated, and, as in the
case of all other milk-borne diseases, is entirely due to filthy
handling, and may be prevented by intelligent sanitary policing. Even
with our present exceedingly imperfect systems, probably not more than
between five and ten per cent of typhoid is transmitted in this way;
and, if the water-supply were kept clean, this would practically
disappear.

Typhoid may not only be transmitted from the earth beneath and the water
under the earth, but also from the heavens above, through the medium of
flies and dust. The first method is bulking larger every day, especially
in country districts and in camps. The _modus operandi_ is simplicity
itself. The fly lives and moves and has its being in dirt. It breeds in
dirt and it feeds on food, and, as it never wipes its feet, the
interesting results can be imagined. Just to dispel any possible doubt,
plates of gelatine have been exposed where flies could walk on them,
then placed in an incubator, and within forty-eight hours there was a
clearly recorded track of the footprints of the flies written in clumps
of bacilli sown by their filthy feet. More definitely, flies have been
caught in the houses of typhoid patients, put under the microscope, and
their feet, stomachs, and specks found swarming with typhoid bacilli. A
single flyspeck may contain three thousand.

Fortunately, we have a simple and effective remedy. We cannot disinfect
the fly nor make him wipe his feet, but we _can_ exterminate him
utterly! This sounds difficult, but it isn't. Like the mosquito, the fly
can only breed in one particular kind of place, and that place is a heap
of dirt, preferably horse manure, but, at a pinch, dust-bins,
garbage-cans, sweepings under porches or behind furniture,
vaults,--anywhere that dirt is allowed to remain undisturbed for more
than a week at a stretch. Abolish, screen, or poison these dirt
accumulations, and flies will disappear, and with them not merely risks
from typhoid, but half a dozen other diseases, as well as all sorts of
filth and much discomfort and inconvenience. It was largely through
flies that the dis