LOUSE 



3524 



LOUVAIN 



terian Theological Seminary of Kentucky, and 

 State University (colored). There are also the 

 Louisville City Hospital Training School for 

 Nurses and the Kentucky Institute for the 

 Education of the Blind, which has in connec- 

 tion the American Printing House for the Blind 

 (see BLINDNESS, subtitle Education oj the 

 Blind). 



The Carnegie Public Library consists of a fine 

 main building and eight branch buildings and 

 has more than 160,000 volumes (1916). In the 

 main building is an art gallery and a museum 

 of rare collections of birds, plants, shells, relics 

 and curios. 



The new city hospital, which has cost $1,000,- 

 000, and the United States Marine, Saint Jo- 

 seph's, the Norton, and Deaconess hospitals; 

 the Masonic Widows' and Orphans' Home, 

 Saint Joseph's Orphan Asylum (Roman Catho- 

 lic), German Protestant Orphan Home and the 

 Louisville Industrial School of Reform are the 

 largest of many benevolent and charitable or- 

 ganizations. 



Industries. Exceptional transportation fa- 

 cilities and rich agricultural surroundings have 

 made Louisville one of the most important 

 trade and manufacturing centers of the South. 

 The value of its annual factory products ex- 

 ceeds $100,000,000. It is probably the largest 

 leaf-tobacco market and tobacco manufacturing 

 city in the world and handles 'more than one- 

 third of the tobacco crop of the United States. 

 It contains extensive manufactories of whisky, 

 plows, wagons, boxes, bathtubs, flour, furni- 

 ture, implements, leather, pianos, organs, ce- 

 ment, men's clothing, paint, etc. It is an im- 

 portant market and meat-packing center and 

 has large drug, hardware and wholesale estab- 

 lishments. 



History. The first settlement made at Louis- 

 ville was on an island (now washed away) in 

 the river. In 1779 a party of thirteen families 

 under the leadership of George Rogers Clark, 

 removed from the island to the mainland. The 

 new settlement was named in honor of Louis 

 XVI of France. It was incorporated as a town in 

 1780, chartered as a city in 1824 and rechartered 

 in 1851, 1870 and 1892. In 1890 the city was 

 swept by a tornado which caused the death of 

 eighty people and a loss of $2,500,000. W.E.M. 



LOUSE, lous, a parasitic insect that feeds on 

 warm-blooded animals and upon plants. The 

 common louse lives by sucking blood from man 

 and other animals. It is a small, wingless in- 

 sect, with flat, almost transparent body, hooked 

 feet fitted for holding to hairs, and a beaklike 



sucker forming the mouth part, which, though 

 soft, can pierce the skin so as to enable the 

 animal to draw the blood. The eggs of lice 

 are called nits. They are oval and are attached 

 to hairs by a gummy substance. They hatch 

 in six days and in eighteen days more are 

 capable' of reproducing. Personal cleanliness is 

 the best preventive of both head and body lice, 

 but these pests are easily transmitted from one 



LICE WHICH ATTACK HUMAN BEINGS 

 (a) Head louse; (6) body louse. The perpen- 

 dicular line at right of each shows adult size. 



person to another. Mercurial ointment is con- 

 sidered the best remedy for destroying the 

 insects; the hair may often be rid of them by 

 means of a kerosene wash. 



Three species are said to belong to man, sev- 

 eral species to birds, one species lives in books 

 or papers, and a winged species of bark louse 

 clusters on the bark of trees. 



LOUVAIN, loovaN' , a beautiful city in the 

 Belgian province of Brabant, stormed and 

 partly destroyed by the German forces during 

 the first month of the War of the Nations 

 (which see). This city, one of the quaintest 

 memorials of the days of feudalism, is situated 

 about eighteen miles east of Brussels on the 

 Dyle River. Its famous church of Saint Pierre 

 is in ruins, and nothing but the towers are 

 left of its magnificent Gothic cathedral, rank- 

 ing among the finest in Europe. Four other 

 churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 

 turies were also razed. Its beautiful town hall, 

 the Hotel de Ville, is the most important of 

 the city's old landmarks now standing. Very 

 little of the celebrated university, with its 

 library of 250,000 volumes, is left to tell of the 

 glory of former days. 



Destiny decreed a tempestuous history for 

 this little city of about 42,500 inhabitants. In 

 the fourteenth century it was very prosperous, 

 due to the enterprise of its cloth manufacturers. 

 Then the weavers revolted against their rulers, 

 and because of harsh treatment many fled to 

 England. The plague of the sixteenth century 

 again struck a severe blow at its prosperity. 



