INTRODUCTORY 5 



of making the closer examination of the cloth- 

 ing necessary to reveal lice. An unsigned letter, 

 evidently from a woman, recently related that 

 she had got into this condition and remained 

 infested for months until, thinking she was suffer- 

 ing from a skin disease, she consulted a doctor, 

 who revealed to her the cause of the trouble and 

 the remedy. An artisan informed us recently 

 that he had had lice upon him for three years and 

 had never even told his wife, who was doubtless 

 concealing the same condition from him. He 

 had become despondent about it, and as his 

 frequent changing of underclothing, baths, and 

 searches over his underclothing had failed to free 

 him, he had come to believe that the lice bred 

 from his skin owing to his weak state of health. 

 This sense of shame is a very grave mistake. 

 Lousiness is a disease as influenza is a disease, and 

 should be as readily confessed to. Its origin is 

 just as innocent, and though only people of 

 unclean habits in civil life can become heavily 

 infested, it is quite possible for a person with 

 the habits of an ordinary English household to 

 harbour a few lice over a very long period if 

 unaware of the simple methods necessary to 

 completely free himself. 



Lice breed neither from the skin nor from dirt. 

 However unclean in habit a person may be, 

 unless he comes in contact with one who is lousy, 

 or picks up a louse which has left such a one, he 

 cannot become infested with them. In the time 



