Bedbug

“ The bedbug is normally nocturnal in habits and displays a certain degree of wariness, caution, and intelligence in its efforts at concealment during the day. Under the stress of hunger, however, it will emerge from its place of concealment in a well-lighted room at night, so that under such circumstances keeping the gas or electric light burning is not a complete protection. It has been known under similar conditions to attack human beings voraciously in broad daylight. ”

“ The bedbug is one of the numerous insects which have been suspected of conveying disease to man. Compared with such insect pests as mosquitoes, lice, and fleas, however, its rôle is decidedly a minor one. ”

“ Living always in houses as it does and being well concealed, the bedbug is not normally subject to much if any control by natural enemies. Certain other household insects, however, do occasionally prey upon the bedbug, as, for example, the house centipede and the [6] common little red house ant. ”

“ The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted, after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of a comparatively simple structure. ”

“ It is also possible that in rare instances the bedbug may transmit plague or European relapsing fever to man. On the other hand, there is no convincing evidence that the bedbug is the usual and ordinary insect transmitter of these or any other diseases at present known to us. ”

“ Furthermore, the fact that the bedbug attacks its host at comparatively long intervals of from a week to several weeks or months acts as a bar to its transmission of certain insect-borne diseases, the biology of which requires a definite and comparatively short period of development in the alternate insect host. ”

“ Cimex lectularius L.; order Hemiptera, suborder Heteroptera, family Cimicidae.
CONTENTS. ITS PRESENCE EXPLAINED.
T THE presence of the bedbug (fig. 1) in a house is not necessarily an indication of neglect or carelessness; for, little as the idea may be relished, this insect may gain access in spite of the adoption of all reasonable precautions. It is very apt to get into the trunks and satchels of travelers, or into baskets of laundry, and may thus be introduced into homes. ”

“ What may eventually prove to be mere variations of the ordinary type of human bedbug have been described as distinct species in several instances. For example, the common bedbug of southern Asia is supposed to present some slight variations from the European type, chiefly in being somewhat more elongate. These slightly diverging forms of the bedbug in different parts of the world, which are not known to have any special bird or animal host other than human beings, may prove to be merely local races or varieties of the ordinary bedbug. ”

“ Most of these are undoubtedly exaggerations, but the inherited experience of many centuries of companionship with man, during which the bedbug has always found its host an active enemy, has resulted in a knowledge of the habits of the human animal and a facility of concealment, particularly as evidenced by its abandoning beds and often going to distant quarters for protection and hiding during daylight, which indicate considerable apparent intelligence. ”

“ Those that gain an entrance into the skin should be cut out, care being taken to remove the insect entire.
BEDBUGS
In the order Hemiptera, or the true "bugs" in an entomological sense, we find a few forms that may carry disease. The bedbug (Fig. 35) (Cimex lectularis) has been accused of transmitting plague, relapsing fever and other diseases. Very recent investigations show that the common bedbug of India (Cimex rotundatus) harbors the parasite that causes the disease known as kala azar, and there is no doubt that it transmits the disease. ”

“ Birds, bats, and poultry are attacked in various parts of the world by a considerable number of parasitic bugs, closely related to the bedbug, which live on their hosts and in nests and about roosting places. One of these species, occurring abundantly in southwestern United States and Mexico, [2] probably originally a parasitic messmate on birds and bats, has come to be an unmitigated poultry pest, and from the close association in these regions between poultry and human beings, is often a serious house pest—more so even than the true bedbug. ”

“ Like its allies, the bedbug undergoes what is known as an incomplete metamorphosis. In other words, the insect from its larval to its adult stage is active and similar in form, structure, and habit, contrasting with flies and moths in their very diverse life stages of larva, chrysalis, or pupa, and winged adult.
The eggs (fig. 3, d) are white oval objects having a little projecting rim around one edge and may be found in batches of from 6 to 50 in cracks and crevices where the parent bugs go for concealment. ”

“ There are many records indicating the ability of the bedbug to survive for long periods without food, and specimens have been kept for a year in a sealed vial with absolutely no means of sustenance whatever. ”

“ Notwithstanding the minor rôle which must be assigned the bedbug as a carrier of disease, its presence is an offense against sanitary decency. Its bites are quite poisonous to some people and its odor is most disagreeable ”

“ Packard, "that the bedbug originally lived under the feathers of semi-domestic birds is strengthened by the fact that a European species of Cimex lives on the body of the swallow, another on the bat, while a third is found in pigeon-houses." Insects that are of service to man are also considered, and, singularly enough, we find in this category the cockroach, which, instead of being the unmitigated nuisance generally thought, is the mortal foe of the bedbug, and really does good work in ridding our houses of that disgusting pest. ”

“ Bedbugs and other household insects, however, are not of the sort which it is convenient or profitable to turn over to their natural enemies in the hope that eradication by this means will follow, and the fact that they are preyed upon by other insects furnishes no excuse to the housekeeper for not instituting prompt remedial measures. ”

“ It is not a difficult matter to rid one's self of repulsions if the point-of-view is changed. I presume that the most generally detested creature that is not altogether deadly in its venom is the bedbug. The bedbug is more of a tradition than a fact, and many of those who shudder at mention of him have never seen one of his kind. ”

“ Additional meals between molts may be taken under favoring circumstances, however, and particularly when the insect has been disturbed and has not become fully engorged at its first meal after a molting or other period. The bedbug takes from 5 to 10 minutes to become bloated with blood, and then retires to its place of concealment for 6 to 10 days for the quiet digestion of its enormous meal, and for subsequent molting, or reproduction if in the adult stage. ”

“ It has the power of resisting great cold and of fasting indefinitely. The eggs of the bedbug are very small, whitish, oval objects, laid in clusters in the crevices used by the bugs for concealment; they hatch in eight days. Under favorable conditions and slovenly housekeeping, their multiplication is extremely rapid. The greatest trouble lies with the housekeeper who allows the bugs to [Pg 54] increase unchecked until they are so numerous in the floors and walls that it is nearly impossible to kill them off. ”

“ Bedbugs are difficult to prove as an agent in the transmission of disease but their disgusting habits are sufficient reason for their extermination. It has been proven by experiment that they may spread typhoid and relapsing fevers. They prefer human blood to other food and have come to live in bedrooms and beds because this food can be obtained there. They are extremely difficult to exterminate because their flat body allows them to hide in cracks out of sight. ”

“ Of course those insects which live by preying on human kind receive special attention. We do not remember ever before to have heard that the Cimex, or bedbug, is originally a parasite of birds, especially doves and swallows. ”

“ They have got more pure gall to the superficial foot than anybody we ever heard of. It seems that the house has a lot of vermifuge to feed plants, and a bedbug tonic that it wants to bring before the public, and it wants us to devote a quarter of a column every day to the merits of these bug and worm discouragers, and then take our pay out of tickets in the drawing of a brindle dog next spring. ”

“ The bedbug has accompanied man wherever he has gone. Ships are very apt to be infested with it and have been the chief means of its wide distribution. It probably came to this country with the earliest colonists ”

“ Such migration is especially likely to take place if the human inhabitants of an infested house leave it. With the failure of their usual source of food, the migratory instinct of the bedbugs is developed, and, escaping through windows, they pass along walls, water pipes, or gutters, and thus gain entrance into adjoining houses. ”

“ In Europe this species haunts houses for the purpose of preying upon bedbugs. Riley, in his well-known article on Poisonous Insects, published in Wood's Reference Handbook of Medical Science, states that if a fly or another insect is offered to the cannibal bug it is first touched with the antennæ, a sudden spring follows, and at the same time the beak is thrust into the prey. The young specimens are covered with a glutinous substance, to which bits of dirt and dust adhere. They move deliberately, with a long pause between each step, the step being taken in a jerky manner. ”

“ Fig. 34.—Conorhinus megistus, the insect carrier of Schizotrypanum cruzi. (From Doflein after Chagas.)
It requires several months for the insect to go through the egg, larval and pupal stage to maturity. Some consider this bug to belong to the genus Triatoma. The insects may live for more than a year and tend to remain in the same house where they may have become infected but leave such house if it be abandoned by man. Brumpt thinks that the bedbug may also transmit the disease. ”

“ Johnson and Mellanby (1939) , also in laboratory experiments, were unable to show that bedbugs can be controlled by Blatta orientalis or that bedbugs are eaten to any extent by them. The existing evidence indicates that there is little basis for the often repeated statement that cockroaches destroy bedbugs in nature. As Lorando (1929) pointed out, assassin bugs, cockroaches, and red ants can hardly be considered as practical factors in bedbug control, though he did recommend the use of spiders. ”

“ Within recent years the possibility of insects carrying the germ and in one way or another transmitting it to healthy individuals has been suggested and much discussed. As the lepræ bacilli are present in the skin and ulcers of leprous patients, insects sucking the blood or feeding on the sores could not help taking some of them into their body or becoming contaminated. These bacilli have been found at various times in the stomach or intestine of mosquitoes, fleas and bedbugs. So it is believed by some that these and other insects, such as lice and flies, may sometimes transmit the disease. ”

“ It thrives particularly in filthy apartments and in old houses which are full of cracks and crevices, in which it [4] can conceal itself beyond easy reach. As just noted, the old-fashioned, heavy, wooden-slatted bedsteads afford especially favorable situations for the concealment and multiplication of this insect, and the general use in later years of iron and brass bedsteads has very greatly facilitated its eradication. Such beds, however, do not insure safety, as the insects are able to find places of concealment even about such beds, or get to them readily from their other hiding places. ”

“ The great desideratum, however, in a case of this kind, is a daily inspection of beds and bedding, particularly the seams and tufting of mattresses, and of all crevices and locations about the premises where these vermin may have gone for concealment. A vigorous campaign should, in the course of a week or so at the outside, result in the extermination of this very obnoxious and embarrassing pest. ”

“ It usually leaves its victim as soon as it has become engorged with blood and retires to its normal place of concealment, either in cracks in the bedstead, especially if the latter be one of the wooden variety, or behind wainscoting, or under loose wall paper, and in these and similar places it manifests its gregarious habit by collecting in masses. ”

“ Others of the species infesting birds and bats may also on occasion become house pests. For example, the nests of the common barn or eaves swallow of this country often swarm with the barn-swallow bug, [3] and from such nests under the eaves of dwelling houses these bugs sometimes gain entrance to houses and beds and are the cause of much annoyance. ”

“ When engorged the body becomes much bloated and elongated and brightly colored from the ingested blood. The wings are represented by the merest rudiments, barely recognizable pads, and the simple eyes or ocelli [ 4 ] of most other true bugs are lacking. The absence of wings is a most fortunate circumstance, since otherwise there would be no safety from it even for the most careful of housekeepers. Some slight variation in length of wing pads has been observed, but none with wings showing any considerable development has ever been found.
THE "BUGGY" ODOR. ”