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transmission of trench fever. Lice bred from clean stock in England 

 were fed at intervals on febrile and afebrile trench fever patients 

 in all stages of the disease who had been sent over from France. 

 The lice were then placed upon two healthy individuals who had 

 not been in France nor contracted trench fever. Although the lice 

 were fed freely in this way daily for one month, no fever developed 

 in either person. As these individuals had purposely refrained from 

 scratching the skin, infection by means of excreta or crushed bodies 

 of the lice was to a large extent excluded. Several more individuals 

 having volunteered for experimental purposes, a small area of skin 

 in these cases was lightly scarified and a small quantity of the dried 

 excreta taken from the boxes of hce which had fed on trench fever 

 cases was rubbed in. In every one of the cases so treated a typical 

 attack of trench fever occurred after an incubation period of several 

 days. A small quantity of blood taken from one of these cases and 

 inoculated into a healthy individual produced the fever after an 

 incubation period of 5 days. 



The fact that the bite alone of the infected louse does not produce 

 trench fever, but that when the excreta taken from such lice is 

 scratched into the skin fever supervenes, is of great importance in 

 view of the prevention of the disease. It also explains cases of trench 

 fever occurring in wounded men who may have had no lice on them 

 for some weeks, as the dried excreta blown on to a raw surface would 

 give rise to the disease. It is found that lice will readily leave a fever 

 case and pass to an individual with normal temperature when such 

 are available. Experiments are now in progress with the excreta of 

 normal hce, to determine whether the disease is carried from man to 

 man by lice or merely from louse to man. These conclusions confirm 

 the necessity for a very determined campaign against the louse in 

 order to eliminate, or at least reduce, the incidence of a fever which 

 has greatly weakened our man power at the front. 



LEGISLATION. 



An Ordinance to amend the Gilbert and Ellice (Quarantine) Regulation 

 1909.— iVo. 6 of 1917, Gilbert & Ellice Islands Colony, Suva, Fiji, 

 25th July 1917. [Received 4th June 1918.] 



By the terms of this Ordinance the Health Officer of the Gilbert 

 and Ellice Islands Colony is empowered to demand of any passenger 

 arriving from any vessel that has come from or called at any place 

 or port in Samoa a certificate in writing not more than seven days old 

 at the time of the departure of such vessel from such port or place, 

 under the hand of a duly qualified medical practitioner, to the effect 

 that the person presenting the certificate was, at the date thereof, 

 free from microfilaria. Any passenger failing to produce such a certi- 

 ficate may be prohibited from landing. The owner or master of any 

 vessel bringing a passenger from Samoa without such a certificate is 

 liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds. [See 

 also this Review, Ser. B, iii, p. 192.] 



