Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1913 — BEWARETHE BEDBUG [ARTICLE]

BEWARETHE BEDBUG

It Follows Man Everywhere and Transmits Disease. Result of Experiments Made With Insects Applied to Plague Infected Guinea Pigs—Flea Is Declared Les* a Menace. .; —! New York. —To the brilliant chemist Verjbitski’s demonstration that bedbugs transmit borne diseases, Dr. Jacolyn Van Vilet Manning refers in a medical paper as "the most revolutionary discovery since Pasteur announced the etiology of anthrax,” observes Current Literature. For this illuminating vlew of the bedbug lightens the path along which science has floundered in search of the common mode of transmission of acute epidemic disease,- like the plague, with which we are threatened. The fact that the bedbug, cimex lectularius, is an agent of transmission of bubonic plague was not known to the English speaking world until Nuttal Quick, professor of biology in the University of Cambridge, published in the special plague number of tire Journal of Hygiene a translation of the experiments of D. T. VerjbitskL, a Russian, engaged in research in the laboratory of the Imperial Institute of Experimental Madlcine, at St. Petersburg. Verjbitski’s results were definite, proving that bedbugs fed on animals dying of plague communicated the plague to guinea pigs for five days afterward; fleas fed on animals dying of plague communicated the plague to other animals for three days. Verjbitski says in his report: “These experiments were conducted with guinea pigs. The plague culture was enhanced in virulence by passing through several guinea pigs. The, bugs used were cimex lectularius, which is the usual domestic parasite. The strong irritation occasioned by its bite is caused by the action of the saliva which is injected, into the wound. A bug never inflicts but one bite, and does not leave the place until ft has filled itself with blood. Its body under these conditions acquires ah egg shaped form. The bedbugs, in series of 50, were applied to an area of skin under the thigh which had previously been shaved. The results definitely proved that the bedbug transmits plague, and that as an

agent of such transmission the bedbug Is more to be feared than the much dreaded flea of man and animal.” Clothing and bed clothes which are soiled with material from infected insects, obtained either by crushing them or from their feces, can serve

during a long time as a source of infection. The clothing of people who live in dirty unhygienic surroundings is generally covered with spots from crushed bugs and their feces. Formalin vapor is a poor insecticide, especially for bugs.