On a summer day in 1905, Dr. Samuel Crumbine, who worked at the Kansas State Board of Health, was watching a baseball game in Topeka.
The score was tied in the bottom of the eighth inning and Topeka had a man on third with less than two outs.
As Crumbine watched he heard fans near him screaming, “Sacrifice fly! Sacrifice fly!” As the tension mounted, the fans changed their cries and began to yell at the batter, “Swat the ball! Swat the ball!”
Crumbine was working on a project to develop methods to control the spread of Typhoid fever during the hot Kansas summers. He had concluded that flies were spreading the disease but was uncertain how to eliminate the flies.
As Crumbine watched and listened he was struck with a sudden inspiration. He mentally combined the two phrases used by the excited fans and decided to just kill or “swat” the flies.
After the game Dr. Crumbine wrote an article urging the mass killing of flies and published it in “The Fly Bulletin” a scientific journal devoted to the study of flies.
Frank Rose, a schoolteacher, read the article and was also struck by inspiration. Although Crumbine had recommended killing flies he had not specified a way to do so. Rose, inspired by the idea, attached a wire screen to a yardstick and invented the fly swatter, a device to “swat” the “fly”.
It became a national sensation.
Pay attention to God’s gift of inspiration. Even a trivial idea can lead to a major breakthrough.
The Bible says in Psalm 104:24, “…” NIV
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