ENTOMOLOGY

THE CONTROL OF HUMAN LICEby mixing the prisoners, and the exchange among them of souvenirs, especiallyshoulder straps under which the lice clung in masses, the licebecame generally distributed. It was not long before the German armiesfound the louse a very live problem and their scientific journals are fullof papers on the control of the vermin.In Serbia a few cases of typhus fever occurred in October, 1914,and in January, 1915, the disease was epidemic among Austrian prisonerswho were greatly crowded and necessarily compelled to live under veryunsanitary conditions. The disease quickly spread from them to otherindividuals, and as there was no quarantine, and the Austrian prisonersand the infected individuals were sent or allowed to go to various partsof the country, Serbia was soon a1Hicted with a terrible and widespreadepidemic. Weakened by the ravages of war, the country was not preparedfor an epidemic and for a time typhus raged almost at will. Themajority of the Serbian doctors, who were few in number, became afflicted.The epidemic was at its height in April when the number of cases wasat least 9000 a day, but it was impossible to gauge the number of casesin the rural districts. At least 100,000 men, or a quarter of the army,were destroyed in this epidemic which was checked by the energetic effortsof the medical officers, assisted by Dr. R. P. Strong and his Americancolleagues. The work of the Serbian Sanitary Commission is briefly detailedby Doctor Strong in various reports.In Roumania typhus fever and relapsing fever became epidemic in •the winter of 1916-17 and the conditions which occurred there are veryvividly portrayed by Wells and Perkins (1918). Rulison (1918) givesthe history and statistics of the epidemic from its beginning through thegreater part of 1918, estimating ~6,000 deaths from typhus fever up toFebruary IS, 1919.It was inevitable that the louse should reach the western trenchesand contaminate them with disease, and we find that trench fever wassoon considered the most disabling disease of this front. Reports showthat a very high percentage of the men in the trenches became verminous.SISRESERVOIRS OF LOUSE BREEDINGBefore discussing the control measures, we must also know whencearise these infestations of lice which can infect whole nations, becauseprophylaxis must take into accQunt the reservoirs of the pest. In theUnited States, where cleanliness and bathing are more or less the generalrule, there have never been great outbreaks of these vermin exc~p'tin time of war. In certain parts of the world, however, the louse is anever-present associate of man. This is especially true of the ignorant andthe densely populated portions of the world, the Mexican and South