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.