Entomology for medical officers / by A. Alcock.

  • Alfred William Alcock
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Entomology for medical officers / by A. Alcock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    190/404 page 170
    (Y) In cantonments and camps, where the health of the soldier is the sole interest, everything that may be a nidus for maggots must be done away with promptly and regularly. All refuse and rubbish of every kind must be carted away daily to a distance of at least a mile, and to the prevalent leeward, and there reduced to ashes. For permanent latrines, screening may prove a delusion, and for temporary latrines would not come into the question; but flies can be repelled from latrines by the free and constant use of emulsion of crude coal-tar oil, or of petroleum, or by strong solutions of cresol or phenol. Receptacles should contain some of these fluids, or earth or sawdust soaked in them. Where seats are used they should have good lids. The trench of a temporary open latrine should be constantly sprayed with an emulsion of crude coal-tar oil or petroleum. Night-soil carts should be treated with the same, and care should be taken that they do not leak or spill, lest their whole route should become a breeding- ground for flies, as was noticed by Colonel H. B. Thornhill, a famous Cantonment Magistrate in India, who was silently busy with the fly problem nearly thirty years ago. Trench¬ ing-grounds should be carefully chosen. Trenches should be so deep, and the contents should be covered with earth so firmly rammed, as to prevent the egress of maggots that may survive burial. Captain J. Davidson recommends a deep trench, which, when filled in to within 18 inches of the surface, is to be sprayed with io per cent, solution of cresol, or crude coal-tar oil, and then filled in with earth mixed with the crude oil: further, to forestall the lateral egress of any surviving maggots, Major E. E. Austen recom¬ mends that a stretch of canvas soaked in the crude oil be laid well over the mouth of the filled trench, and that the trench thus finally covered be surrounded with a surface trench 6 inches deep packed with earth impregnated with cresol. The litter and excreta of animals must daily be carted, with great care against any droppings by the way, to a spot not less than a mile distant. If there is not too much of it, it can be petrolised and incinerated. But when large quantities have to be dealt with the method practised by
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