72 LICE AND THEIR MENACE TO MAN 



louse, since the scalp is very sensitive to any 

 movement in the hair and a lot of scratching 

 usually accompanies a head infestation. Some 

 primitive tribes who have elaborately arranged 

 hair often use special instruments for scratching 

 the part which itches. The males of the Masha- 

 kalumbwe people of Northern Rhodesia work 

 their hair into a kind of cone on the top of the 

 head. This is prolonged into a stiff upstanding 

 string of perhaps three feet in length, and ending 

 in a brightly coloured feather, so that they can 

 locate one another when hunting on the long- 

 grassed plains on which they live. Once built up 

 this head-dress is never taken down again day 

 or night, and a skewer is used to alleviate itching. 

 Many other African tribes carry wooden fork- 

 like combs in their woolly hair, and may often 

 be seen to remove them, use them for scratching, 

 and replace them again. 



The best precaution against head-lice is the 

 keeping of the hair cropped very close to the 

 head. It is undoubtedly on account of this 

 manner of wearing the hair short that armies are 

 to-day so little troubled by lice on the head. 

 School children, boys and girls, should be treated 

 in the same way until they reach that age when 

 real cleanliness appeals to them. It is better 

 to dispense with the attractiveness of long hair 

 than to risk the health of the child being seriously 

 damaged, not necessarily by one of the three 

 epidemic diseases discussed in these pages, but 



