Abstract
IN a note communicated to the Gazzetta degli Ospitali for August 1883, and republished in the current number of the Archives Italiennes de Biologie (tome. iv. fasc. ii.), Dr. B. Grassi calls attention to the fact that flies are winged agents in the diffusion of infectious maladies, epidemics, and even parasitic diseases. During the summer season, when flies occur in swarms, it seems impossible to prevent them from settling on any and every object. In these countries, though sometimes troublesome, they are scarcely ever so numerous as in the warmer climates of the Continent, and even in these latter they are not often to be found such plagues as they are in Egypt; but in all these countries alike they may be seen to alight on all moist substances without distinction. It may be the expectorations of a phthisical or the ejecta of a typhoid patient that have last attracted these inquiring diptera; but, irrespective of the material they may have been investigating, their next visit may be to the moist lips or eyes of a human being. Their feet, their mouth, and the pectoral portion of their bodies will have all come in contact with the infective mass, and will all in turn be more or less cleansed of it by the moisture of the freshly visited mucous membranes. But this danger has already been known and recognised, and it seems scarcely doubtful that in Egypt ophthalmia is constantly carried to the eyes of the infant natives by such winged visitors. Dr. Grassi calls our attention to even greater danger, and this from the ejecta of the flies themselves. Every housekeeper knows how the bright surface of a mirror or the gilt moulding of a picture-frame can be covered over with the little flecks left by these flies,—no English words occur to us to translate therewith the phrase “les méfaits des mouches.” The following experiences of Dr. Grassi relate to these:—At Rovellasca, between his laboratory, which is on a first floor, and his kitchen, which is on the ground floor, there lies a courtyard, with a distance between the windows of the two rooms of about ten metres. On a plate on the table of his laboratory he placed a large number of the eggs of a human parasite (Trichocephalus). After a few hours he found, on some white sheets of paper hanging in the kitchen, the well-known spots produced by the excreta of the flies, and on a microscopical examination of these spots, several eggs of the parasite were found in them. Some flies coming into the kitchen were now caught, and their intestinal tract was found quite filled with an enormous mass of fcecal matter, in which the presence of eggs of Trichocephali were detected. As it was practically impossible to keep all alimentary substances from contact with these flies, it follows that the chances of Dr. Grassi and his family being infected with Trichocephali were very great. As a matter of fact, the experiment was tried with non-segmented eggs of this worm. Another experiment was in the same direction. Dr. Grassi took the ripe segments of a Tænia solium (which had been in spirits of wine) and broke them up in water, so that a great number of the tapeworm's eggs remained suspended in the fluid. The flies came to the mixture, attracted by the sugar, and in about half an hour the ova of the tapeworms were to be found in their intestines and in the spots. Had these eggs been in a recent and living state, they would doubtless have been just as easily transported. To those who care to try these experiments, it is suggested that lycopod powder mixed with sugar and water is a good material, as the lycopod spores are easily detected.
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W., E. Dangers from Flies . Nature 29, 482–483 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/029482a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029482a0