The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    now generally claimed, that flies are the chief factor in the spread of typhoid fever, and perhaps of summer diarrhea, in well-ordered civil communities. Diarrhea. Statistical Evidence of Fly Infection. — At- tempts have been made to prove by the statistical method the relation of flies to disease. Observations made in widely different localities have shown a very close relation between the seasonal distribution of flies and summer diarrhea. Stations are established at various places in a town and flies are caught in traps or by means of fly paper, and the number of flies is compared with the number of deaths from diarrhea. Niven^ in Manchester, in 1903, found that the '* fly curve and the curve for diarrheal deaths corresponded very closely, and the same agreement was noted in 1905 and 1906.^ The table given shows both the date of inception and the date of death of the fatal cases of diarrhea. In both years the max- imum number of cases occurred at almost exactly the same time as the maximum number of flies, and the maximum num- ber of deaths about a week later. In 1905 the maximum was about August 1, and in 1906 about September 5. Jackson in New York ^ showed a similar close relation between flies and diarrhea, as has Ainsworth * for Poona in India. Nash,^ showing the seasonal distribution of flies, states that in 1902, at Southend, there were few flies and little diarrhea in August, and that diarrhea increased in September as the flies increased. Both 1902 and 1903 had cool summers with few flies and little diarrhea, while 1904 and 1906 had plenty of flies and plenty of diarrhea. In 1904 there was a heavy local incidence near a large dump where flies abounded. Hamer ^ » Niven, Rep. on Health of Manchester, 1903, 123. 2 Rep. on Health of Manchester, 1906, 82. ' Jackson, Rep. to Com. on Pollution [etc.], of the Merchants' Ass. of N. Y., 1907, 17. * Ainsworth, J. Roy. Army Med. Corps, Lond., 1909, XII, 485. « Nash, J. Hyg., CambridRe, 1909, IX, 141. • Hamer, Rep. Med. Oflf. Health, Co. of Lond., 1907, Append. II.