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————————————— Start of Book —————————————
THE MINOR HORRORS
OF WAR
[Illustration: Photograph of enlarged model of the house-fly (_Musca
domestica_) in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. (From
Gordon Hewitt.) P. 57.
[_Frontispiece_
]
THE MINOR HORRORS
OF WAR
BY
A. E. SHIPLEY, Sc.D.
HON.SC.D. PRINCETON, F.R.S.
MASTER OF CHRIST’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND READER IN ZOOLOGY
IN THE UNIVERSITY
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1915
[All rights reserved]
HENRICO ARTHURO ADEANE MALLET
ET
HENRICO ANTONIO PATRICIO DISNEY
ALTERI MARI AERE ALTERI
UTRIQUE FIDELISSIME
PATRIAM TUTANTI
PREFACE
The contents of this little book hardly justify its title. There
are whole ranges of ‘Minor Horrors of War’ left untouched in the
following chapters. The minor poets, the pamphlets of the professors,
the people who write to the papers about ‘Kultur’ and think that this
is the German for Matthew Arnold’s over-worked word ‘Culture,’ the
half-hysterical ladies who offer white feathers to youths whose hearts
are breaking because medical officer after medical officer has refused
them the desire of their young lives to serve their country. Surely, as
Carlyle taught us, ‘_There is no animal so strange as man!_’
These ‘Minor Horrors of War,’ and many besides, have for the moment
been neglected in favour of certain others which attack the bodies, the
food, or the accoutrements of the men who are giving all that they have
to give, even unto their lives, for their homes and for their country.
I deal with certain little Invertebrata: animals which work in
darkness and in stealth, little animals which in times of Peace we
politely ignore, yet little animals which in times of War may make or
unmake an army corps. As that wise old Greek, Aristotle, wrote—and he
knew quite a lot about them—‘_One should not be childishly contemptuous
of the study of the most insignificant animal. For there is something
marvellous in all natural objects._’
We are shy of mentioning these organisms in times of Peace; but all of
them are within the cognisance of every medical officer of health and
of every police-court missionary. These gentlemen do not talk about
them in general society: the subject is as a rule ‘taboo.’ Yet if we
face these troubles with courage and frankness, they can be overcome.
As ‘Emigration Jane’ says: ‘_Well, there’s nothink lower than Nature,
an’ She Goes as ’Igh as ’Eaven._’
I confess that these articles have been written in a certain spirit
of gaiety. This is the reflex of the spirit of those who have gone
to the Front and of my fellow countrymen in general. For more years
than I care to remember, the spirit of Great Britain and of Ireland
had been sombre, self-distrusting—we were till half a year ago far
too ‘_conscious of each other’s infirmities_’; but with the outbreak
of the War everything changed. Our nearest relatives, our dearest
friends, are dead, or dying, or wounded, or prisoners; but we at home
at once caught the spirit of those who have died or have suffered
for us abroad, and we have kept and still keep a high heart. As Mrs.
Aberdeen, the immortal ‘bedmaker’ at King’s College, Cambridge, said:
_But surely, Miss, the world being what it is, the longer one is able
to laugh in it, the better._’ Mrs. Aberdeen spoke in times of Peace;
but I feel that that indomitable old lady would have said the same in
times of War.
These chapters first appeared in the columns of the _British Medical
Journal_. I very gratefully thank the editor and the proprietors of
that Journal for their permission to reprint them.
A. E. SHIPLEY.
CHRIST’S COLLEGE LODGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
_February 14, 1915._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LOUSE (_Pediculus_) 1
II. THE BED-BUG (_Cimex lectularius_) 23
III. THE FLEA (_Pulex irritans_) 35
IV. THE FLOUR-MOTH (_Ephestia kühniella_) 46
V. FLIES: THE HOUSE-FLY (_Musca domestica_) 57
VI. FLIES: THE BLUE-BOTTLE (_Calliphora erythrocephala_)
AND OTHERS 74
VII. MITES: THE HARVEST-MITE (_Trombidium_) 87
VIII. MITES: ENDO-PARASITIC MITES (_Demodex_, _Sarcoptes_) 97
IX. TICKS: _ARGASIDAE_, _IXODIDAE_ 112
X. LEECHES: THE MEDICINAL LEECH (_Hirudo medicinalis_) 123
XI. LEECHES: THE MEDICINAL LEECH (_continued_) 136
XII. LEECHES: _Limnatis nilotica_, _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ 149
INDEX 163
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
Photograph of enlarged model of the house-fly (_Musca
domestica_) _Frontispiece_
1. _Pediculus vestimenti_ 2
2. _Pediculus vestimenti_ (dorsal and ventral views) 6
3. _Cimex lectularius_ (male) 24
4. Egg of _Cimex lectularius_ 28
5. Newly hatched young of _Cimex lectularius_ 29
6. _Pulex irritans_ (female) 36
7. Larva of _Pulex irritans_ 39
8. Pupa of flea 41
9. _Ceratophyllus gallinulae_ (male and female) 44
10. _Ephestia kühniella._ Moth-infested biscuit 47
11. _Ephestia kühniella_ 49
12. _Ephestia kühniella_ (larva and pupa) 50
13. _Corcyra cephalonica._ Moth-infested biscuit 51
14. Eggs of _Musca domestica_ 59
15. Eggs of _M. domestica_ 60
16. Abdomen of female house-fly, showing the extended
ovipositor 61
17. Mature larva of _M. domestica_ 62
18. ‘Nymph’ of _M. domestica_ dissected out of pupal-case
about thirty hours after pupation 63
19. Pupal-case or puparium of _M. domestica_ from which
the imago has emerged 64
20. _M. domestica_ in the act of regurgitating food 65
21. Foot of a fly, showing hairs bearing bacteria 69
22. Chart illustrating the relation of the numerical
abundance of house-flies to summer diarrhoea in
the city of Manchester in 1904 71
23. Latrine-fly (_Fannia scalaris_) 75
24. Larva of _F. canicularis_ 76
25. Blow-fly or blue-bottle (_Calliphora erythrocephala_) 77
26. Green-bottle (_Lucilia caesar_) 79
27. Flesh-fly (_Sarcophaga carnaria_) 80
28. Side view of blow-fly (_Calliphora erythrocephala_) 81
29. _Trombidium holosericeum_ (female) 89
30. _Leptus autumnalis_ = larva of _Trombidium holosericeum_ 90
31. _Leptus autumnalis_, with the so-called proboscis 92
32. _Leptus autumnalis_ 93
33. _Pediculoides ventricosus_ (male and female) 96
34. _Demodex_ in hair-follicle of dog. _Demodex
folliculorum_ 98
35. _Sarcoptes scabiei_ (female) 100
36. _Sarcoptes scabiei_ (male) 101
37. One of the legs of _Sarcoptes scabiei_ showing the
stalked sucker and the curious ‘cross-gartering.’ 102
38. A diagrammatic view of the tunnel made by the female
of _Sarcoptes scabiei_, with the eggs she has laid
behind her as she burrows deeper and deeper 104
39. A female _Sarcoptes scabiei_, with four eggs in
different stages of development 105
40. _Nephrophages sanguinarius_ (male and female) 110
41. Evolution of _Argas persicus_ 113
42. _Ixodes ricinus_ (mouth-parts of the female) 114
43. _Argas reflexus_ (female) 115
44. _Ornithodorus moubata_ (an unfed female) 116
45. _Ornithodorus moubata_ (female) 117
46. _Ixodes ricinus_ (male and female) 118
47. _Ixodiphagus caucurtei_ laying eggs in the nymph of
_Ixodes ricinus_ 120
48. _Hirudo medicinalis_ 124
49. View of the internal organs of _Hirudo medicinalis_ 126
50. Head of a leech (_Hirudo medicinalis_) 130
51. _Hirudo medicinalis_ 133
52. Cocoon of the medicinal leech 142
53. A _Nephelis_ forming its cocoon and withdrawing
from it 143
54. Cocoons of _Nephelis_ 144
55. A leech-farm in the south of France 145
56. _Glossosiphonia heteroclita_, with eggs and emerging
embryos 146
57. _Helobdella stagnalis_, with adhering young 147
58. _Limnatis nilotica_ 150
59. Anterior sucker of _Hirudo medicinalis_ 152
60. The Japanese variety of _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ 156
61. _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ (from above) 157
62. _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ (head) 158
63. _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ (land-leeches), on the earth 159
THE
MINOR HORRORS OF WAR
CHAPTER I
THE LOUSE (_Pediculus_)
Care’ll kill a cat, up-tailles all and a louse for the hangman!
(B. JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_.)
LICE form a small group of insects known as the _Anoplura_, interesting
to the entomologist because they are now entirely wingless, though it
is believed that their ancestry were winged. They are all parasites
on vertebrates. In quite recent books the _Anoplura_ are described
as ‘lice or disgusting insects, about which little is known’; but
lately, owing to researches carried on at Cambridge, we have found out
something about their habits. As lice play a large part in the minor
discomforts of an army, it is worth while considering for a moment what
we know about them.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—_Pediculus vestimenti_ (Nitzsch). A, Magnified
20 times; B, natural size.]
Recently, the group has been split up into a large number of genera,
but of these only two have any relation to the human body. I do
not propose, in the present chapter, to consider one of these
two genera—_Phthirius_—which frequents the hairs about the pubic
region of man and is conveyed from one human being to another by
personal contact. We will confine our attention to the second genus,
_Pediculus_, which contains two species parasitic upon man—(_Pediculus
capitis_) the hair-louse and (_Pediculus vestimenti_) the body-louse.
Both of these are extremely difficult to rear in captivity, though in
their natural state they abound and multiply to an amazing degree.
Wherever human beings are gathered together in large numbers, with
infrequent opportunities of changing their clothes, _P. vestimenti_
is sure to spread. It does not arise, as the uninformed think, from
dirt, though it flourishes best in dirty surroundings. No specimen of
_P. vestimenti_ exists which is not the direct product of an egg laid
by a mother-louse and fertilised by a father-louse. In considerable
collections of men drawn from the poorer classes, some unhappy being or
other—often through no fault of his own—will turn up in the community
with lice on him, and these swiftly spread to others in a manner that
will be indicated later in this chapter.
Like almost all animals lower than the mammals, the male of the
body-louse is smaller and feebler than the female. The former attains
a length of about 3 mm., and is about 1 mm. broad. The female is about
3·3 mm. long and about 1·4 mm. broad. It is rather bigger than the
hair-louse, and its antennae are slightly longer. It so far flatters
its host as to imitate the colour of the skin upon which it lives; and
Andrew Murray gives a series of gradations between the black louse
of the West African and Australian native, the dark and smoky louse
of the Hindu, the orange of the Africander and of the Hottentot, the
yellowish-brown of the Japanese and Chinese, the dark-brown of the
North and South American Indians, and the paler-brown of the Esquimo,
which approaches the light dirty-grey colour of the European parasites.
As plump an’ grey as onie grozet,
as Burns has it.
The latter were the forms dealt with in the recent observations
undertaken by Mr. C. Warburton in the Quick Laboratory at Cambridge,
at the request of the Local Government Board, the authorities of
which were anxious to find out whether the flock used in making cheap
bedding was instrumental in distributing vermin. Mr. Warburton at once
appreciated the fact that he must know the life-history of the insect
before he could successfully attack the problem put before him. At
an early stage of his investigations, he found that _P. vestimenti_
survives longer under adverse conditions than _P. capitis_, the
head-louse.
The habitat of the body-louse is that side of the under-clothing which
is in contact with the body. The louse, which sucks the blood of its
host at least twice a day, is when feeding always anchored to the
inside of the under-clothing of its host by the claws of one or more
of its six legs. Free lice are rarely found on the skin in western
Europeans; but doctors who have recently returned from Serbia report
dark-brown patches, as big as half-crowns, on the skins of the wounded
natives, which on touching begin to move—a clotted scab of lice! But
the under-side of a stripped shirt is often alive with them.
After a great many experiments, Mr. Warburton succeeded in rearing
these delicate insects, but only under certain circumscribed
conditions: one of which was their anchorage in some sort of flannel
or cloth, and the second was proximity to the human skin. He anchored
his specimens on small pieces of cloth which he interned in small
test-tubes plugged with cotton-wool, which did not let the lice out,
but did let air and the emanations of the human body in. For fear of
breakage the glass tube was enclosed in an outer metal tube, and the
whole was kept both night and day near the body. Two meals a day were
necessary to keep the lice alive. When feeding, the pieces of cloth,
which the lice would never let go of, were placed on the back of the
hand, hence the danger of escape was practically _nil_, and once given
access to the skin the lice fed immediately and greedily.
His success in keeping lice alive was but the final result of many
experiments, the majority of which had failed. Lice are very difficult
to rear. When you want them to live they die; and when you want them to
die they live, and multiply exceedingly.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—_Pediculus vestimenti._ Dorsal and ventral
views.]
A single female but recently matured was placed in a test-tube, and a
male admitted to her on the second day. The two paired on the sixth day
and afterwards at frequent intervals. Very soon after pairing an egg
was laid, and during the remaining twenty-five days of her life the
female laid an average of five eggs every twenty-four hours. The male
died on the seventeenth day, and a second male was then introduced,
who again paired with the female. The latter, however, died on the
thirtieth day, but the second male survived.
The difficulty of keeping the male and female alive was simple compared
with the difficulty of rearing the eggs. Very few hatched out. The
strands of cloth upon which they were laid had been carefully removed
and placed in separate tubes, at the same time being subjected to
different temperatures. It was not, however, until the eggs were left
alone undisturbed in the position where they had been laid and placed
under the same conditions that the mother lived in that eight, and only
eight, of the twenty-four eggs laid on the cloth hatched out after
an incubation period of eight days. The remaining sixteen eggs were
apparently dead. But the tube in which they were was then subjected
to normal temperature of the room at night (on occasions this fell
below freezing-point), and after an incubation period of upwards of a
month six more hatched out. Hence it is obvious that, as in the case
of many other insects, temperature plays a large part in the rate
of development, and it becomes clear that the eggs or nits of _P.
vestimenti_ are capable of hatching out up to a period of at least from
thirty-five to forty days after they are laid.
Difficult as it was to keep the adults alive, and more difficult as it
was to hatch out the eggs, it was most difficult to rear the larvae.
Their small size made them difficult to observe, and, like most young
animals, they are intolerant of control, apt to wander and explore, and
less given to clinging to the cloth than their more sedentary parents.
Naturally, they want to scatter, spread themselves, and pair.
Like young chickens, the larvae feed immediately on emerging from the
egg. They apparently moult three times, at intervals of about four
days, and on the eleventh day attain their mature form, though they do
not pair until four or five days later.
Mr. Warburton summarises the life-cycle of the insects, as indicated by
his experiments, as follows:—
Incubation period: eight days to five weeks. From larva to imago:
eleven days. Non-functional mature condition: four days. Adult life:
male, three weeks; female, four weeks.
But we must not forget that these figures are based upon laboratory
experiments, and that under the normal conditions the rate may be
accelerated. From Mr. Warburton’s experience it is perfectly obvious
that, unless regularly fed, body-lice very quickly die. Of all the
verminous clothing sent to the Quick Laboratory, very little contained
_live_ vermin. The newly hatched larvae perish in a day and a half
unless they can obtain food.
With regard to the head-louse:—
Ye ugly, creepin’, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,
it is smaller than the body-louse, and is of a cindery grey colour.
The female measures 1·8 mm. in length and 0·7 in breadth. Like the
body-louse, it varies its colour somewhat with the colour of the hair
on the different branches of the human race. It lives amongst the hair
of the head of people who neglect their heads; it is also, but more
rarely, found amongst the eyelashes and in the beard. The egg, which
has a certain beauty of symmetry, is cemented to the hair, and at
the end of six days the larvae emerge, which, after a certain number
of moults, become mature on the eighteenth day. The methods adopted
by many natives of plastering their hair with coloured clay, or of
anointing it with ointments, probably guards against the presence of
these parasites. The Spartan youths, who used to oil their long locks
before going into battle, may have feared this parasite. Some German
soldiers, before going to war, shave their heads: thus they afford no
nidus for _P. capitis_. The wigs worn in the late seventeenth and at
the beginning of the eighteenth centuries undoubtedly owed something
to the difficulty of keeping this particular kind of vermin down. The
later powdering of the hair may have been due to the same cause.
This book, however, attempts to deal more with the troubles of
the camp, and _P. capitis_ is in war time less important than _P.
vestimenti_. The former certainly causes a certain skin trouble,
but the latter not only affords constant irritation, but, like most
biting insects, from time to time conveys most serious diseases. _P.
vestimenti_ is said to be the carrier of typhus. This was, I believe,
first demonstrated in Algeria, but was amply confirmed last year in
Ireland, when a serious outbreak of this fever took place, though
little was heard of it in England. Possibly, _P. capitis_ also conveys
typhus, but undoubtedly both convey certain forms of relapsing or
recurrent fever. The irritation due to the body-louse weakens the host
and prevents sleep, besides which there is a certain psychic disgust
which causes many officers to fear lice more than they fear bullets.
Lice are the constant accompaniment of all armies; and in the South
African War as soon as a regiment halted they stripped to the skin,
turned their clothes inside out, and picked the _Anoplura_ off. As a
private said to me: ‘We strips and we picks ’em off and places ’em in
the sun, and it kind o’ breaks the little beggars’ ’earts!’
In conjunction with the Quick Professor of Biology at Cambridge, I have
drawn up the following rules. None of them will be possible at all
times, but some of them may be possible at some time in the campaign.
At any rate, by acting on these rules, a relative of mine who took part
in the South African War was able to escape the presence of lice on his
body, and the General commanding his brigade told me on his return that
he was the only officer—and in fact the only man—in the brigade who had
so escaped.
HOW THE SOLDIER MAY GUARD HIMSELF
AGAINST INFESTATION WITH LICE
In times of war, when men are aggregated in large numbers and personal
cleanliness—but especially an adequate change of clothing—cannot be
secured, infestation with lice commonly takes place. The prevalence of
lice in troops in the South African War was a source of serious trouble
in that their attacks caused much irritation to the skin and disturbed
men’s sleep.
Lice occur chiefly on the body (_Pediculus vestimenti_) and head (_P.
capitis_). They are small greyish-white insects. The female lays about
sixty eggs during two weeks; the eggs hatch after nine to ten days.
The lice are small at first; they undergo several moults and grow in
size, sucking blood every few hours, and attain sexual maturity in
about two weeks. The eggs will not develop unless maintained at a
temperature of 22° C. or over—such as prevails in clothing worn on the
human body or in the hair of the head. This is why, _when clothing is
worn continuously_, men are more prone to become infested with lice
derived from habitually unclean persons, their clothing, bedding,
&c. _P. capitis_ lives between the hair in the head, and the eggs,
called ‘nits,’ are attached to the hairs. _P. vestimenti_ lives in the
clothing, to which it usually remains attached when feeding on man; it
lays its eggs in the clothing, and usually retreats into the seams and
permanent folds therein. This is of importance in considering the means
of destroying lice.
To avoid these pests the following rules should be observed:—
1. Search your person as often as possible for signs of the presence of
lice—that is, their bites. As soon as these are found, lose no time in
taking the measures noted under paragraph 5.
2. Try not to sleep where others, especially the unclean, have slept
before. Consider this in choosing a camping-ground.
3. Change your clothing as often as practicable. After clothes have
been discarded for a week the lice are usually dead of starvation.
Change clothes at night if possible, and place your clothing away from
that of others. Jolting of carts in transport aids in spreading the
lice, which also become disseminated by crawling about from one kit to
another. Infested clothing and blankets, until dealt with, should be
kept apart as far as possible.
4. Verminous clothes for which there is no further use should be burnt,
buried, or sunk in water.
5. If lice are found on the person, they may be _readily destroyed by
the application of either petrol, paraffin oil, turpentine, xylol, or
benzine_. Apply these to the head in the case of _P. capitis_. Remember
that these fluids are all =highly inflammable=. When possible, soap
and wash the head twenty-four hours after the last application of
petrol, &c. The application may be repeated on two or more days if the
infestation is heavy. Fine combs are useful in detecting and removing
vermin from the head. Tobacco extract has been advocated failing other
available remedies. In the case of _P. vestimenti_, the lice can be
killed as follows: Under-clothes may be scalded—say, once in ten days.
Turn coats, waistcoats, trousers, &c., _inside out_; examine beneath
the folds at the seams and expose these places to as much heat as can
be borne before a fire, against a boiler, or allow a jet of steam from
a kettle or boiler to travel along the seams. The clothing will soon
dry. If available, a hot flat-iron, or any piece of heated metal, may
be used to kill vermin in clothing. Petrol or paraffin will also kill
nits and lice in clothing. If no other means are available, turn the
clothing inside out, beat it vigorously, remove and kill the vermin by
hand—this will, at any rate, mitigate the evil.
6. As far as possible avoid scratching the irritated part.
7. Privates would benefit by instruction in these matters.
8. Apart from the physical discomfort and loss of sleep caused by the
attacks of lice, it should be noted that they have been shown to be
the carriers of typhus and relapsing fever from infected to healthy
persons. Typhus, especially, has played havoc in the past, and has been
a dread accompaniment of war.
Dr. R. F. Drummond has drawn my attention to a common folklore belief
emplanted in the minds of our poorer people. Incredible as it seems,
these uneducated and ignorant folk believe that lice on the person
is a sign of productivity, and that should they be removed their
hosts will become barren or sterile. They transfer, by a process of
sympathetic magic, the productivity of the lice to the lousy. As
Dr. Drummond writes, these ignorant mothers and aunts believe that
the nits and the lice arise spontaneously, and are ‘an outward and
visible sign of an inward and invisible fertility.’ Those who try to
cleanse the heads and the bodies of our primary schoolchildren are
‘up against’ the superstitions of the little ones’ guardians, and the
guardians unfortunately often prove the stronger. Similar views are
held widely by the various peoples of India and the East—people we call
heathen—and, apart from the connexion thought to be established between
fertility and lice, the presence of the latter is considered both at
home and abroad to be a sign of robust health.
The rather obscure connexion of the louse and the pike (_Esox lucius_)
is probably due to the fact that the Latin name for the pike is
_Lucius_. The poor pun in ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ on the Lucy
family is due to a similar resemblance in sound.
The Editor of the _Morning Post_ has given me leave to quote the
following paragraphs from an article by his able Correspondent at
Petrograd.
All armies, after a few weeks’ campaigning, whatever other hardships
may come their way, are sure of one—namely, certain parasites. Even
officers under most favourable conditions are unable to keep clear
of this scourge. Silk under-clothing is some palliative, but no
real preventative. Various measures have been proposed to relieve
the intense annoyance caused by millions of parasites of at least
two species. Flowers of sulphur, worn in bags round the neck, were
supposed to be a preventative, but proved fallacious.[1] What seems
likely to prove perfect prophylactery is recommended by M. Agronom,
who writes from Bokhara, where he has noted the habits of the Sarts
and their preventative measures.
The Sarts never wash, and hardly ever in lifetime change their
clothes; therefore their condition would be impossible without some
preventative measures. They take a small quantity of mercury, which
they bray into an amalgam with a plant used in the East for dyeing
the hair and nails—probably henna. This paste is evenly laid on
strands of flax or other fibres. One string thus prepared is worn
round the neck and the other round the waist next the skin, the heat
of the body producing exhalations which kill parasites. The string
lasts quite a long time.
M. Agronom has made experiments with the ordinary mercurial ointment
prepared with any kind of fat, and finds the effect precisely the
same. He asserts that such a minute quantity of mercury as is
required to produce the desired result is perfectly harmless to the
system. A half-crown’s worth of mercury brayed in a mortar with lard
or other fat will suffice to treat enough threads for several hundred
soldiers. The threads should be of ten or a dozen strands or some
very loosely twisted material like worsted, and should be wrapped in
parchment paper before boxing for dispatch to the soldiers. This is
effective and lasting for body parasites. Others are easily dealt
with by rubbing in petroleum, which must be done twice at a week’s
interval.
It should also be noted that no ordinary washing methods will clear
the parasites from body-linen even when dipped in boiling water; but
if a couple of spoonfuls of petroleum are added to every gallon of
water, perfect success is assured even without boiling.
I confess I think he is a little bit too dogmatic about the habits of
the Sarts. I am told the better-class Sarts do occasionally bathe, or
why are there public baths at Khiva? After all, in our oldest and most
cultured University, only a year ago, the venerable Head of a House
exclaimed with some acerbity, when a junior Fellow suggested putting up
hot-water baths for the undergraduates: ‘Baths! why the young men are
only up eight weeks!’
And, again, though the clothes of the Sarts are doubtless flowing,
unless they are elastic, they must get bigger as babyhood passes to
boyhood and boyhood passes to manhood.
Preparations of mercury are also used in India: not only against human
lice, but against the Mallophaga or biting-lice which infest the Indian
birds used in falconry. It is difficult for a zoologist to believe the
last paragraph of the _Morning Post_ correspondent. The temperature
of boiling water coagulates animal protoplasm as it does that of the
white-of-egg; and what would the lice do then, poor things?
Early in the year, Mr. C. P. Lounsbury, the well-known Government
Entomologist in South Africa, wrote that they were supplying the troops
there with sulphur-bags which were supposed to keep the lice away. The
sulphur is put in small bags of thin calico, and several of these are
secured on the under-clothing, next to the skin. The bags are about
two inches square, and I am told that it is customary to have one worn
on the trunk of the body and one against each of the nether limbs.
Whether this is effective will probably be known soon; but that flowers
of sulphur do play an effective part in keeping down these troubles is
shown by a letter of Dr. Harding H. Tomkins:—
Over thirty years ago, when house-surgeon at the Children’s
Infirmary, Liverpool, I used this with absolute success in all cases
of plaster-of-Paris jackets who formerly had been much distressed by
vermin getting under the jacket. The sulphur was rubbed well into the
under-clothes.
But still more interesting evidence is given by Dr. N. Bishop Harman:—
When I was serving in the South African War, and attached to No. 2
General Hospital at Pretoria, I was detailed to take medical charge
of the camp of released prisoners that was established a few miles
out of the town on the Delagoa Bay railway line. I moved into the
camp the night they came in. Next day an inspection was held. I
do not think I ever saw such a sorry sight. The men were in the
most nondescript garments, and they were flabby from the effects
of the food the Boers had given them—mealy pap, for the most part.
They had had no washing facilities, and they were dirty in the
extreme. Amongst them were a number of men of the D.C.O. Yeomanry,
many of them Cambridge men, and when these came to me for special
examination, unwarily I invited them into my tent to strip, and
their clothes were laid on the only available support—my bed. The
next day or two was spent in cleaning up the men and refitting them.
By the end of the week I noticed in the evening an unpleasant itch
about the lower part of the trunk: a sub-acute sort of itch, it did
not seem like a flea, and I could find nothing. But after a most
diligent search with all the candles I could borrow, I found, to
my horror, a louse. It was a genuine body-louse. Then I remembered
my folly in inviting strangers into my tent. Water was scarce, the
morning tub was only the splash from a can. Laundry was impossible.
But after some trouble I managed to get a can of hot water and get
some sort of a hot wash. My man did the best he could with my shirt
and pants. What to do with the bedding—dark brown blankets—I did
not know, except to expose them to the hot sunshine. I rode into the
town, but insect-powder could not be got. It came into my mind that
I had read or heard that people who took sulphur-tablets smelled of
H2S, so on the chance that an outside application might be of
some service I got a supply of flowers of sulphur. This I liberally
sprinkled all over my clothes, bedding, and rubbed into the seams of
my tunic and riding-breeches. The itching was stopped in a day, and
it never came again. But I soon noticed another circumstance: all the
bright brass buttons of my tunic, although freshly polished by my man
every morning, were tarnished before evening, even in the clean, dry
atmosphere of the dry veld. Also my silver watch-case went black.
There was no doubt that the sulphur was acted upon by the secretions
of the skin and H2S was produced, and this I had no doubt killed
off any lice that could not be got at by washing. Subsequently, I
always used it when I was in likely places. And some places were very
likely! In Cape Town, I had to inspect all the soldiers’ lodgings
in view of the spread of the plague. And, again, I had charge of a
Boer prison-ship, and never once did I catch so much as a hopper. The
prison-ship was literally alive with cockroaches of all sizes; our
cabins swarmed with them, but they avoided my clothes and kit like
a plague, and there was never a nibble-mark to be found. I gave the
hint to many men and they confirmed my experience. I have since met
other men who hit on the same device with equal success. In this war
I have told the tip to many friends, and some relatives, who have
gone out, and so far they have been free from the plague. You will
note that I used all the other measures I could, but my bedding and
uniform were not washed, and the lice must have come through the
bedding; there was no other possible means I could trace. Yet the
flowers of sulphur killed off all that might be therein.
A very effective method for exterminating vermin in infected troops was
carried out by Dr. S. Monckton Copeman, F.R.S., at Crowborough. To put
the matter briefly, I append a copy of his able and concise memorandum
which was distributed to all the medical officers of the Division; but
further details may be obtained by referring to the _British Medical
Journal_, or the _Lancet_ of February 6, 1915.
To the Medical Officer....
Treatment for Destruction of Vermin.
Arrangements should be made for the bathing of affected
individuals and other inmates of infected tents.
After drying themselves, men to lather their bodies with
cresol-soap solution (water 10 galls., Jeyes’ fluid 1½ oz., soft
soap 1½ lb.), especially over hairy parts, and to allow the
lather to dry on.
Shirts to be washed in cresol-soap solution made with boiling
water.
Tunics and trousers to be turned inside out, and rubbed with same
lather, especially along the seams. Lather to be allowed to dry
on the garment.
The materials can be obtained from the A.S.C. on indent
authorised by A.D.M.S. in the form attached.
Infected blankets were at first treated by soaking them
in cresol-soap solution, after which they were sent to a
neighbouring laundry to be washed—a small contract rate having
previously arranged. In the first week in November, however, a
portable Thresh’s steam disinfecting apparatus was supplied to
the Division, through the Second Army, since when no difficulty
has been experienced in the disinfection both of clothing and
blankets.
As a matter of fact the simple and inexpensive method which has
been employed by us over a period of several months has proved so
successful that no necessity has arisen for a trial of any other
means of treatment.
Professor Lefroy, of the Royal College of Science and Technology,
recommends two effective remedies, known respectively as ‘Vermijelli’
and ‘Vermin Westropol.’[2] Lieut.-Colonel E. J. Cross has successfully
treated the clothes and bedding of his men with a powder consisting of
three parts of black hellebore root and one of borax, and many similar
powders are produced by the manufacturers of insecticides.
Let us end up this chapter cheerfully!
The importance of lice is equalled by their unpopularity. A lady,
driven to extremes by—well let us call it—the want of gallantry of
Dr. Johnson, called him ‘a louse.’ The great lexicographer retorted,
‘People always talk of things that run in their heads!’