2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
medical entomology, parasitology, and preventive medicine to deter- 
mine the extent to which this subject was covered. All the authors 
agreed that cockroaches are sanitarily undesirable because they are 
potential health hazards. Yet, generally, the subject was handled 
briefly and was based on only a few references. 
Pierce (1921) devoted a chapter to disease agents transmitted by 
cockroaches, in which he summarized about a dozen papers published 
between 1900 and 1916. Riley and Johannsen (1938) indicated that 
cockroaches have long been under suspicion as carriers of disease 
organisms; they discussed the problem in about two pages with a 
dozen references. Neveu-Lemaire (1938) covered the subject in about 
three pages with a few incomplete references (only authors’ names 
were cited). Rosenau (1940) summed up his half-page discussion of 
five references: “Roaches must therefore be regarded as a sanitary 
menace.” Dunham (1940) flatly stated, “Roaches do not transmit 
any disease to man.” Nevertheless, he admitted in the next sentence 
that they might mechanically contaminate food with pathogenic or- 
ganisms. Herms (1939) devoted three and a half pages to cock- 
roaches as carriers of infectious agents but stated no definite conclu- 
sions (six references and original data). Chandler (1949) cited 
cockroaches at least eight times, as prominent transmitters of disease 
agents. Matheson (1950) devoted a half page to cockroaches and 
human disease but concluded, “. . . nothing has been established of 
the importance of roaches in disease dissemination.” Busvine (1951), 
in a half page, discussed the hygienic importance of cockroaches and 
concluded that “. . . the cockroach is less likely to carry infection 
than the common housefly, because, though its habits are equally un- 
pleasant, its mobility is less.” Martini (1952) devoted about three 
pages to cockroaches but very little to their relation to disease. Faust 
(1955) cited cockroaches as intermediate hosts of human helminths 
and mechanical vectors of several pathogenic organisms. The one 
current text most likely to counteract this almost universal lack of 
emphasis is “Insect Microbiology” by E. A. Steinhaus. Although he 
did not discuss cockroaches and disease as an entity, Steinhaus (1946) 
cited numerous instances of biologic relationships between cockroaches 
and micro-organisms. 
In addition to the textbook authors cited above, several of the 
authors of experimental reports have concluded that cockroaches are 
vectors of disease agents ; these are cited in section XV. 
This review is a documented summary of the tangled relations be- 
tween cockroaches and the organisms that cause disease in man and 
other animals. It directs attention to the impressive body of literature 
