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....