NO. IO COCKROACHES—ROTH AND WILLIS 7 
Being omnivorous, cockroaches eat practically every food used by 
man and his animals, as well as biological waste products such as 
garbage and sewage. Cockroaches are found wherever man stores or 
prepares food for himself or for his domestic, experimental, and 
exhibition animals. So from market to kitchen, laboratory, or zoo, 
cockroaches have ample opportunity to contaminate food that is not 
adequately protected. This contamination may be feces and vomitus, 
dead cockroaches, or disease organisms. Except for parasites for 
which cockroaches are intermediate hosts, the disease organisms are 
transmitted mechanically in the insect’s feces, in its vomitus, and on 
its legs and body. 
People living in civilized, highly sanitized areas rarely are aware 
of the truly tremendous cockroach infestations that may exist under 
poor hygienic conditions. Gal’kov (1926) cited conditions in mine- 
workers’ living quarters in the Nizhne-Tagil district of the Ural re- 
gion: “The cockroaches and bedbug population of the barracks was 
terrifying. Every crack in the doors and beams of the walls and 
ceilings, in the floor, the boards of the cots, benches, and tables were 
positively crammed with them. In the corners near the stove, the 
cockroaches covered the walls in a dense carpet.” Lamborn (1940) 
emphasized similar conditions in Africa. Moiser (1947) reported 
that more than 2,500 cockroaches were trapped in one night in a wide- 
mouthed bottle, baited with cooked meal, that had been placed in an 
African native’s hut. 
Wolcott (1950) cited an infestation of Leucophaea maderae in a 
small fruit store in Puerto Rico where the owner cleaned out over a 
bushel of these cockroaches. Sein (1923) stated that in their hiding 
places, “hills” of Madeira cockroaches can be seen composed of indi- 
viduals clinging to one another. 
DeLong (1948) described the types of heavy cockroach infesta- 
tions that may be encountered in supermarkets (i.e., grocery depart- 
ment stores). He had seen 100-pound bags of onions and potatoes 
in which the number of German cockroaches surpassed the number of 
vegetables. Hundreds of German cockroaches were found in balances 
and cash registers; behind the sloping mirrors used in back of the 
produce racks, German cockroaches “. . . may be massed several 
inches deep on the back of the mirror for the full length of the fluo- 
rescent tube.’ DeLong reported that the oriental cockroach is also 
common and numerous in supermarkets, where it hides during the 
day in cracks in the foundations, inside walls, under furniture, or 
behind cartons. At night this species is conspicuous on the floor where 
it feeds on available food. The American cockroach occasionally 
