Lice

“ Old fowls may show little inconvenience unless badly infested. The finding of the lice with the head imbedded in the skin or on the feathers enables the person making the examination to positively diagnose the case. The head, back, region of the vent and beneath the wings are the parts that should be carefully examined for lice. ”

“ It is in fact difficult to believe, as it has seriously been stated, that lice have been seen to issue from the bodies of men like a spring of water from the earth. A physician of the 16th century, named Amatus Lusitanus, speaks of a great Portuguese nobleman who was so covered with lice that two of his servants were constantly occupied in collecting them and carrying them to the sea. ”

“ An expert eye detects the presence of the lice by the sparse and jaundiced foliage of young trees which an untrained eye would say were down with incipient yellows—indeed countless numbers of young trees have been sacrificed to the yellow's pyre when they suffered only from lice on the roots. ”

“ The lice are small at first; they undergo several moults and grow in size, sucking blood every few hours, and attain sexual maturity in about two weeks. The eggs will not develop unless maintained at a temperature of 22° C. or over—such as prevails in clothing worn on the human body or in the hair of the head. This is why, when clothing is worn continuously, men are more prone to become infested with lice derived from habitually unclean persons, their clothing, bedding, &c. P. capitis lives between the hair in the head, and the eggs, called ‘nits,’ are attached to the hairs. ”

“ In some men the appearance of lice is a disease, in cases where the body is surcharged with moisture; and, indeed, men have been known to succumb to this louse-disease, as AIeman the poet and the Syrian Pherecydes arc said to have done. Moreover, in certain diseases lice appear in great abundance. ”

“ On the bare soil, on stones, on dry bark, the little Lice undoubtedly perish. They need food quickly; and they are scarcely capable of wandering in quest of it themselves. Their sucker, sometimes of inordinate length, projecting beyond the tip of the abdomen like a caudal rapier, demands that the wearer shall erect it, shall drive it into some yielding source of sap. The insect must drink or die. In the test-tubes wherein I collect the young Lice born before my eyes, my captives die in less than a fortnight from want of food. ”

“ Lice are no doubt to be regarded as bugs, simplified in structure and lowered in animal life in accordance with their mode of living as parasites, being small, flattened, apterous, myopic, crawling and climbing, with a conical head, moulded as it were to suit the rugosities of the surface they inhabit, provided with a soft, transversely furrowed skin, probably endowed with an acute sense of feeling, which can guide them in that twilight in which their mode of life places them. ”

“ In order to combat lice properly and intelligently, it is necessary to know something about where and how they feed, live, and breed.
(a) Adult lice live on the skin and feathers of the bird and only rarely leave the pigeon. When accidentally dislodged, they crawl very short distances to other birds. Lice cannot live longer than a few days away from the birds. ”

“ Lice.—It is not very poetical, as many of the grim facts of every-day life are not, but, unlike a great deal of poetry, it is unfortunately too true that after a severe and dangerous illness, especially after a bad attack of fever, a child's head frequently becomes infested with vermin—with lice. ”

“ Collect several of the beetles and the grubs and keep them in a bottle or jelly glass. Leave them without food for a day and then give them some green plant-lice and watch them devour the lice. How many lice can one eat in a day? How do they go about devouring a louse? Do they simply suck out the blood, or is the louse completely devoured? Supposing that for each apple tree in Missouri there are one hundred lady-beetles and that each beetle devours fifteen lice in a day, does it not seem worth while protecting them and encouraging such work? ”

“ The heads of children are most subject to be infested with lice, and men the least so, for women are more liable to them than men. Those that have lice in the head are less subject to headache. Many other animals are infested with lice: for both birds have them, and those which are called phasiani, unless they dust themselves, are destroyed by [Pg 135] them. And so are all those creatures which have feathers with a hollow stem, and those which have hair, except the ass, which has neither lice nor ticks. Oxen have both; sheep and goats have ticks, but no lice ”

“ The big gray lice will be found on a chick’s neck near the head. The remedy for this is to grease the feathers with vaseline on the head and neck. The small white lice can be controlled by dusting the chicks with insect powder and by keeping the brooder absolutely clean. A weekly coat of whitewash to which some carbolic acid has been added will keep lice in check in poultry houses and is an excellent plan. Hen-hatched chicks are usually more subject to lice than those hatched In incubators and raised in brooders, as they become infected from the mother. ”

“ They may be cleansed from the lice by rubbing them with a hair pencil; this cannot be easily done, unless they adhere to some substance: so that if they are suspended from the surface of the water, you must endeavour to get them to fix themselves to a piece of packthread; when they are fastened thereto, you may then rub them with a hair pencil, without loosening them from the thread.
The lice which torment the polype are not only very numerous, but they are also very large proportionably to its size: they may be said to be nearly as large with respect to them, as a common beetle is to us. ”

“ The hog-louse is the largest specie known. As well as the largest, it is the most common of all lice found on domestic animals. The favorite points of attack are the under surface of the body, the neck and the inside of the thighs. The irritation and itching are severe, and the hog rubs and scratches the skin. Young hogs suffer most from this parasite, and their thriftiness is greatly interfered with.
The long-haired breeds of dogs suffer more from lice than the short-haired breeds. The almost constant scratching and biting of the skin result in its becoming badly irritated and scabby. ”

“ As many as 4,707 infected lice were fed on one man, and 6,515 on another occasion were allowed to bite a man after they had fed on a monkey heavily infected with spirochætes, yet no infection of the man followed. Examination of the lice showed that the spirochætes left the gut soon after they were ingested, and passed into the body cavity, which swarmed with spirochætes. The contents of the alimentary tract and the fæces of the lice alike were uninfective. ”

“ A drop of emulsion placed on the conjunctiva of the human eye produced spirochætosis after an incubation of seven days. The body contents of such lice, then, produce infection when they reach the blood by any excoriated or penetrable surface. The stages leading up to infection in nature briefly are: The irritation due to the louse bites causes scratching, and the lice are crushed on to the skin. The slight abrasion is quite sufficient to permit the entry of the parasite. The louse bite alone is harmless. ”

“ How the Soldier may Guard Himself against Infestation with Lice
In times of war, when men are aggregated in large numbers and personal cleanliness—but especially an adequate change of clothing—cannot be secured, infestation with lice commonly takes place. The prevalence of lice in troops in the South African War was a source of serious trouble in that their attacks [12] caused much irritation to the skin and disturbed men’s sleep.
Lice occur chiefly on the body (Pediculus vestimenti) and head (P. capitis) . They are small greyish-white insects. The female lays about sixty eggs during two weeks ”

“ Sulla, Herod, Cardinal Dupet, Philip II, and others are said to have died from louse disease. That even at present many human beings are exposed to the danger of being devoured by lice is a fact that we have had the opportunity of observing on several occasions. ”

“ Body lice we don't care for. We just boil our clothes and that's the end of them. Their feeding time is when we are still for a while, but at the first move they all let go and grab fast to our clothing. But the head lice are more difficult to deal with unless it be the kind that I had, which all attend one church and at the same time. ”

“ Female lice lay eggs (nits) along the shafts of the feathers, particularly on the primary coverts.
(d) Louse eggs hatch in 10 to 14 days.
(e) Young lice eat, molt (3 to 5 times) , and grow to maturity in about 14 days.
(3) Diagnosis. Infested pigeons are restless and constantly pick and scratch in an effort to dislodge the lice. Heavily infested birds may become weak and thin because the constant annoying movement of lice interferes with their proper relaxation and rest. Careful examination of the birds will reveal the lice. ”

“ It is quite a different disease from typhoid fever, and is conveyed from man to man solely through lice. In other words, the phrase "No lice, no typhus" is scientifically true.
Every army in the field is a lousy army, and every soldier in a fighting unit is more or less lousy. The louse commonly present is the body louse, and it lays its eggs in the seams of the uniforms and on the underclothes. The eggs hatch out quickly so that when a man once becomes infected the lice multiply with great rapidity. ”

“ He has not only an idea that those with lice in their hair are less subject to headaches, but also a notion that those who have lice and take baths become more liable to the pest when they change the water in which they wash themselves. ”

“ Lice multiply more rapidly and cause greater loss during the winter months than they do in the summer, when the animals are not housed and the opportunity for infection from the surroundings is not so great. The sucking louse (Fig. 64) is the most injurious and irritating. The irritation and loss of blood that the animal may suffer when badly infested by this parasite may result in marked unthriftiness. Young and old animals that are not well cared for suffer most. The biting louse may bite through the superficial layer of the skin, and cause the animal to bite and rub the part. ”

“ These parasites go from person to person, hence a child having either should be kept from school until he is clean. A thorough washing will remove lice if they have not yet inflamed the skin, but itch requires a more vigorous {199} treatment. ”

“ Normally, only pigeons carry pigeon lice. For this reason, the spread of lice to or from other kinds of birds is of no concern. However, common pigeons and stragglers are prolific sources of spread. Contact in crates is also a common source of infestation. Lice are often brushed from infested birds onto the hands and clothing of pigeoneers who later carry them to clean birds handled later.
b. Red mites. Red mites are a common parasite of the pigeon. ”

“ This treatment will destroy both insects and eggs. After twenty-four hours the hair and scalp must be shampooed with warm water thoroughly.
CLOTHES LICE.—These insects are a trifle larger than the head lice, being one-twelfth to one- [Pg 162] eighth inch long, of a dirty, yellowish-gray color, and only infesting the most filthy people. The lice are generally only seen on the clothes, where they live, coming out on the body only to feed. ”

“ Others, not killed, are greatly impeded in their growth; the tender parts, which are attacked, become stunted and curled. The punctures of the [314] lice appear to poison some plants, producing warts or swellings, which are sometimes solid, sometimes hollow, containing within them a swarm of lice, descendants of a single individual. [28] These last are often seen upon the leaves of the Elm, and upon some Poplars, and other trees; but I have not found any upon the foliage of our cultivated fruits, unless it be those on the grape. ”

“ Further, they often cause great cutaneous irritation and are loathsome companions. It is no easy matter to get rid of lice when infection is on a large scale, but very often this is not the case and it is possible to detect their presence only by careful examination. There is no real difference between head lice and body lice; they are simply varieties of the same insect. The presence of head lice may be recognized by the discovery of their eggs, which are known as nits and are minute, yellowish-white, goblet-shaped bodies about the size of a full-stop on this page. ”

“ Two kinds of lice attack the horse, one of which is furnished with narrow head and a proboscis for perforating the skin and sucking the blood, and the other—the broad-headed kind—with strong mandibles, by which it bites the skin only. ”

“ Then the lice, and then they die,"
is a couplet repeated in all the hop districts to-day, but the damage done by the flea is not to be compared to that caused by the next pest, the fly. The latter is one of the numerous species of aphis which begins its attack in the winged state, and after producing wingless green lice in abundance—which further increase by the process known as "gemmation"—reappears with wings in the final generation of the lice, and hibernates in readiness for its visitation in the spring next year. ”

“ Nicotine is the most effective chemical for killing plant-lice. Do any of the lice develop wings? If so, how many? Wings develop on some of the lice at times when a plant or crop becomes too heavily infested by them. This enables some of the lice to spread to new food plants before old plants are completely destroyed and the colony of lice starved. ”