Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1899 — The Kissing Bug is Coming. [ARTICLE]

The Kissing Bug is Coming.

.The daily papers have lately had much to say regarding a new kind of insect pest popularly known as the “kissing bug.” The name sounds rather amusing, the bug itself is no or beetle something over a half inch long and it is armed with a formidable bill or sucker, and which evidently secrets a very active poison. Its regular prey is Other insects, but it frequently bites people and especially on the lips, when asleep, and hence the popular namexkissing bug. The bite is always very painful, and causes the part to swell enormous* ly. The bite usually yields to treatment in a few days, but in at least one case we have heard of, that of a child, it caused death. The bug has heretofore been mostly heard of in the east but it has now reached Indiana, and reports of persons being bitten are now becoming quite frequent in the oity papers.