Further preliminary reports on flies as carriers of infection.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Further preliminary reports on flies as carriers of infection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/46 (page 22)
    SMALLPOX. We have found but one reference to flies in relation to smallpox. Hervieux (1904) states that Laforgue at Tamorna-Djedida. Province of Constantine, observed the following during an epidemic at the above-mentioned place. The children who were attacked all lived in the south-west of the village; the northern part of the village remained free fi'om smallpox. This distribution was attributed to the direction of the prevailing winds and it was noted that flies and mosquitoes were distributed with the wind. Laforgue believed that flies played an important part in spreading the virus of smallpox. STAPHYLOCOCCUS PYOGENES AUREUS. Three observers appear to have experimented with pyogenic bacteria; Celli (1888) reported experiments of Alessi’s, which were doubtless conducted with M. domestica. He states that the staphylococci passed through the flies’ alimentary canal without loss of virulence. Jolt (1898) isolated staphylococci from a house-fly caught in a clinical laboratory. Buchanan (1907, p. 217) allowed M. domestica to walk across a pus-soiled surface, and afterwards on agar upon which colonies of staphylococci subsequently developed. SWINE FEVER. Buchanan (1907, p. 217) caught Mvsca vomitoria upon carcases of pigs which had died of swine fever, and which had been subjected to post-mortem examination. The captured flies were allowed to walk across media contained in Petri dishes, and the swine fever bacillus was recovered from one of the cultures. TROPICAL SORE. That flies convey “ Bouton de Biskra,” is asserted by Seriziat (1875) and by Laveran (1880). Tscherepxin (1876) who described a similar affection as oc^curring at Taschkent, states that the disease in that locality is attributed to the bite of certain insects, whence its name, “ Pascha-Churdj,” meaning “ fly-bite.” Seriziat asserts that a lesion of the skin is always necessary for infection to take place, and that the affection unquestionably results at times in consequence of a mosquito bite. Laveran says that from September to October inclusive (at Biskra), • the slightest wound tends to become transformed into the bouton. He has seen it “ graft itself, so to speak, on pustules of acne or impetigo, on wounds following burns or the application of vesicatories, finally on vaccine pustules.” Fleming (Brit. Army Med. Rep. for 1868, X, and 1869, XI), Weber (Rec. Mem. MM. Mil., 1876), and Murray (Brit. Med. Journ., 1883) proved that the disease was inoculable from man to man. Laveran states that it spreads by scratching in an individual affected. He does not doubt that flies carry the virus on their feet and proboscides and thus give rise to infection. More recent observation does not appear to have thrown further light on the subject.