240 Arthropods as Essential Hosts of Pathogenic Protozoa 
to keep clean-—the notorious filth disease has decreased or dis¬ 
appeared. In localities where it still prevails, its further reduction 
or complete eradication waits on a further improvement in, or exten¬ 
sion of, the improved economic status of those afflicted. Economic 
evolution is very slow process, and, while doing what we can to hasten 
it, we must take such precautions as existing conditions permit, 
looking to a reduction in or complete eradication of the disease.” 
“When possible, public bath houses and public wash houses, 
where the poor may bathe and do their washings at a minimum or 
without cost, should be provided. Similar provision should be 
made in military and construction camps. Troops in the field should 
be given the opportunity as frequently as possible to wash and scald 
or boil their body linen.” 
“Lodging houses, cheap boarding houses, night shelters, hospitals, 
jails and prisons, are important factors in the spread and frequently 
constitute foci of the disease. They should receive rigid sanitary 
supervision, including the enforcement of measures to free all inmates 
of such institutions of lice on admission.” 
“So far as individual foci of the disease are concerned these 
should be dealt with by segregating and keeping under observation 
all exposed individuals for 14 days—the period of incubation—from 
the last exposure, by disinfecting (boiling or steaming) the suspected 
bedding, body linen, and clothes, for the destruction of any possible 
vermin that they may harbor, and by fumigating (with sulphur) 
the quarters that they may have occupied.” 
“It will be noted that nothing has been said as to the disposition 
of the patient. So far as the patient is concerned, he should be 
removed to ‘clean’ surroundings, making sure that he does not 
take with him any vermin. This may be done by bathing, treating 
the hair with an insecticide (coal oil, tincture of larkspur), and a 
complete change of body linen. Aside from this, the patient may 
be treated or cared for in a general hospital ward or in a private house, 
provided the sanitary officer is satisfied that the new surroundings 
to which the patient has been removed are ‘clean,’ that is, free 
from vermin. Indeed, it is reasonably safe to permit a ‘clean’ 
patient to remain in his own home if this is ‘clean,’ for, as has al¬ 
ready been emphasized, there can be no spread in the absence of lice. 
This is a common experience in native families of the better class 
and of Europeans in Mexico City.” 
“Similarly the sulphur fumigation above prescribed may be 
dispensed with as unnecessary in this class of cases.” 
