Chapter Five 



Common Insect Enemies 



The Lousy Louse 



JLVEMEMBER these immortal words of 

 Robert Burns that you were forced to memorize back in the 

 days when you were a little schoolboy or schoolgirl? 

 "O wad some Power the giftie gk us 

 To see oursels as ithers see us! 

 It wad frae mony a blunder free us, 



An' foolish notion: 

 What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

 An' ev'n devotion! " 

 And what prompted Burns to write these words of wis- 

 dom? Nothing but a lowly louse on the bonnet of a well- 

 dressed lady who was piously sitting in church, entirely ob- 

 livious to the fact that her uncleanliness was to be the in- 

 spiration for a famous poem, entitled "To a Louse." This, 

 seemingly, was the only louse in history that ever did anyone 

 any good. Its countless brothers and sisters are at best 

 merely loathsome creatures, and at their worst they are among 

 the most deadly of man's innumerable insea enemies. 



When speaking about lice, one must be very careful to 

 differentiate between the three types that attack man: the 

 body louse Pediculus corporis, the head louse Pediculus cap- 

 itis, and the crab, or pubic, louse Phthirius pubis. Of these 

 three, the body louse is the most dangerous for it is the prin- 



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