Common consent for years has ascribed to the fly a major role in the spread of enteric infections.Evidence for this belief was incomplete and did not permit an evaluation of these insects as disseminators of disease.The development in recent years of more potent insecticides, particularly DDT, made it possible to plan and carry out an experi- ment on a broad scale designed to answer the following questions:(1) Can flies be controlled in urban populations by insecticidal meth- ods under the limitations of action imposed by civilian life?(2) What effect, if any, will such control have on the acute diarrheal diseases of the community, particularly those caused by specific infection with the ShigeUa and SalmoneUa groups of micro-organisms?The basic needs for such a study were: An area with a significant amount of infectious diarrheal disease; a major fly problem; and geographic location which would permit division of the human population along natural lines into two comparable areas, one to be treated, the other to be left untreated for comparison purposes.This latter con- dition was essential, since it is known that variations in diarrheal disease rates greater than 100 percent occur from year to year and season to season.Plan of Study Such an area was found in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and at the request of Dr.
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Watt et al. (1948) studied this question.