HOW INSECTS CAN CARRY OR CAUSE DISEASE 21 



entomological service was sought and the house freed of its pests. The 

 constant moving of streams of ants across a floor, the sight of bedbugs 

 or fleas, and many other common insect occurrences may cause a nervous 

 person great perturbation. Recently a young entomologist was nau- 

 seated and made very sick for hours by the sight of a louse infested 

 man. 



Memory and imagination worry may be exemplified by the person 

 impressed by anti-house fly propaganda, whose imagination sees on every 

 fly multitudes of fatal disease germs. A person once injured by an 

 insect will often experience acute revulsions of feeling on sight of another 

 similar insect. 



Sound worry such as that induced by the singing of mosquitoes or 

 the buzzing of horse flies will often lead to insomnia and in the cases of 

 animals will cause great uneasiness. 



Smell worry or annoyance from insects often takes the form of great 

 embarrassment. A few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Calosoma beetles were 

 so numerous that people walking on the streets frequently would have 

 one alight on them, and, in brushing the beetle off, would cause it to 

 expel a sufl^cient quantity of liquid to make the person's presence 

 undesirable in polite society. ]Many people are so sensitive to bedbug 

 odors that when they sleep in infested rooms they are constantly aware 

 of the odor and are possessed of a fear that they will be attacked by 

 the bugs. 



Taste annoyance is often caused by eating berries containing bugs, 

 or which bugs or cockroaches have contaminated. This may often cause 

 nausea. 



Finally, there is the worry aroused hy contact of insects, the tingling 

 sensation from insects crawling on the body, the peppery sting of gnats 

 and mosquitoes, the itching sensations from vermin. Insomnia is a 

 frequent result of such attacks. 



Thus as results of insect annoyance, we may have worry, nervous 

 exhaustion, excitability, hallucinations, frenzy, insanity, nausea, insomnia 

 and nervous chills. 



3. Accidental injury to sense organs. — There are numerous cases on 

 record of insects accidentally obtaining access to the ear or nose and 

 causing a stoppage of these organs, or of insects flying into the eyes 

 causing severe irritation or even blindness. Certain species of gnats 

 are especially annoying when there is any kind of catarrhal affection 

 of these organs. Myriapods have frequently been recorded as entering 

 the nose of a sleeping person. 



4. Poisoning. — Insects and the related arthropods may poison in a 

 variety of ways. The bite of a tick, flea, spider, mosquito, horse fl}', 

 etc., may cause a severe local irritation and poisoning. The poisonous 



