ENTOMOLOGY

39~ SANITARY ENTOMOLOGYDISEASES OF THE PLANT KINGDOM TRANSMITTED BY BUGSThallophyta: fungi: BacteriaceaeBacillualeprae Hanson, the cause of LEPROSY, has been considerablyexperimented upon with a view to determining the possibility of bedbugtransmission. Carmichael, in 1899, suggested the possible connectionbetween bedbugs and leprosy. Long, in 1911, conduded experiments.He allowed two Qedbugs to bite lepers, in'the neighborhood of leprousnodules, and then examined, the alimentary canal of the bugs and foundthem to contain the bacilli. He cites in one of his papers the case of acertain man who slept in a hut formerly occupied by a leper. He wasbitten by bugs while sleeping there and later developed the disease. Skeltonand Parham think transmission by bedbugs in Zanzibar to be improbable.Thomson has conducted a few experiments with this organism,and Smith, Lynch, and Rivas have also published an article on the transmissibilityof the leper bacillus' by the bedbug. Ehlers found the leprosybacillus in the digestive tract of bedbugs in 'the West Indies in 1909 (see~umston 1918). Sanders in South Africa found the bacillus in ~o outof 75 bugs fed, when starved, on leprous patients. The bacilli occurred inthe proboscis up to the fifth day, in the digestive tube to the sixteenthday, and also in the feces. Goodhue also found the lepra bacillus in bugswhich have bitten leprous patients. It still is incumbent upon some oneto attempt the transmission of the leper bacillus by inoculation of fecesof the bedbug in skin abrasions. It would appear that scratching after abite would be the logical means of inoculating the disease.Bacillus pestis Kitasato, the cause of BUBONIC PLAGUE, has beenexperimented on by a number of authors to determine the possibility oftransmission by bedbugs. Yubitski conducted certain experiments whichare reviewed by Manning. Cornwall and Menon have also written onthe possibility of transmission of plague by bedbugs.Cumston (1918) reviews the literature, but signally fails to grasp thesignificance of the records he quotes. Like most other investigators hewas looking primarily for evidence of transmission by' bite. Jordanskyand I{lodnitzky succeeded in inoculat~ng mice with plague by having thembitten by infected bedbugs. They found large numbers of plague bacilliin the digestive tube of one bedbug and a few in anpther on the 36th dayafter they had bitten a pestiferous mouse. Nuttall and Wierzbitzky alsofound the bacillus in the digestive tube. In India Walker found ~~ro ofthe bugs in huts of natives infected with plague, to be infected with thebacillus. He also transmitted the plague to a rat by a bug .which hadbitten a pestiferous patient.