398 LICE 



results were obtained both in experiments with crushed lice and 

 with the excrement of the lice. 



Epidemics of typhus usually occur in winter and in cold coun- 

 tries, due to the huddling together of people in warm, poorly 

 ventilated houses where lice thrive, and where the unhygienic 

 conditions lower the vitality of the people. Typhus has fol- 

 lowed in the wake of nearly every army which has ever been 

 assembled. During the present great European war typhus 

 has been largely absent from the armies and population of Brit- 

 ain, France and Germany, due solely to the intensive anti-louse 

 measures which have been enforced by these countries. The 

 less scientific and less cleanly nations have suffered enormous 

 losses. An epidemic began in Serbia in January, 1915, among 

 some Austrian prisoners who were allowed to disperse all over 

 the country. The disease spread with them, and for a time raged 

 almost at will in that war-stricken country. The majority of 

 the small number of Serbian doctors were affected, no sanitary 

 measures for the suppression of lice were understood or enforced, 

 and no adequate accommodations for the sick could be provided. 

 The epidemic continued to rise, and reached its height in April, 

 when there were estimated to be 9000 deaths per day. It was 

 largely through the heroic efforts of the American Red Cross 

 expedition that the epidemic was finally checked, after having 

 destroyed over 150,000 people. In December, 1916, another 

 epidemic was reported to be raging in Syria with over 1000 deaths 

 per day. Milder epidemics have occurred in Austria, Bulgaria 

 and Russia, all countries where science and cleanliness have 

 not been worshipped as they have in the greater nations of Eur- 

 ope. Mexico has suffered also; in December, 1915, 11,000 

 cases of typhus were reported in Mexico City and its environs. 



The role of lice in the transmission of the European and North 

 African form of relapsing fever has long been suspected but was 

 not proved until 1913, when Nicolle and his fellow- workers 

 scientifically demonstrated it in Tunis and Algeria. Noting 

 that the louse was the only constant factor affecting the occur- 

 rence of the disease, these French workers undertook extensive 

 experiments which resulted in proving that the body louse, and 

 probably also the head louse, serves as a medium for the develop- 

 ment of the spirocha3tes of relapsing fever, and that these insects 

 transmit the disease not by biting but by inoculation of the 



