28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
Tropical hygienists must be strongly recommended to pay 
attention to the connection between cockroaches and eventual 
inexplicable cases of illness. 
AKKERMAN (1933). 
VIII. ALLERGY 
Cockroaches have long been known to crawl over sleeping persons. 
As early as 1699, Lehmann (7m Hennicke, 1761) reported cockroaches 
feeding on milk that had flowed around the neck of a newborn child. 
Vinson (in Hasselt, 1865) stated that it was not at all rare on Re- 
union (=Bourbon) Island for cockroaches to crawl over the faces 
of sleeping people, attracted there by the taste or odor of food or 
drink on the mouth or lips. Moseley (1892) observed that a large 
cockroach on board H.M.S. Challenger would sip moisture from his 
face and lips while he was dozing. In Brazil, H. H. Smith (im Mar- 
latt, 1902) and his wife sometimes had to brush cockroaches from 
their faces at night. Rau (1940) noticed that, while he was sleeping 
in his laboratory, Periplaneta americana would crawl on his face and 
imbibe moisture from his nostrils. More recently, cockroaches have 
been seen in hospitals crawling on the faces of sleeping babies (Frings, 
1948 ; Graffar and Mertens, 1950). Ina personal communication about 
his original observation, Frings wrote as follows: “As to the matter 
of cockroaches crawling on infants—I saw this myself. ... The 
incubators had a beautiful population of roaches which the pest con- 
trol man I was accompanying was not allowed to go after. It was 
while watching the playful antics of these Blattella germanica that I 
noticed some of them walking around on the infant and actually feed- 
ing on a little bit of caked milk at the corners of its mouth.” In addi- 
tion to these observations, the numerous records, in the next section, 
of cockroaches biting man also imply that the insects crawl over 
sleeping persons. 
The possibility of bodily contact with cockroaches is thus well 
established, particularly in tropical areas and even in temperate cli- 
mates where control measures are not adequate. Small wonder, then, 
that certain skin diseases have been attributed to contact with cock- 
roaches. Vinson (im Hasselt, 1865) noted that among the residents 
on Reunion there appeared a special blistery rash on the face about 
the mouth. This agreed with the condition known as herpes simplex 
(=labialis [Scott in Rivers, 1948]), but Vinson believed that the 
dermatitis should be called herpes blattae. He stated that, unlike 
herpes simplex, herpes blattae could be easily prevented by rinsing 
or washing the face before sleeping. He attributed the blister-raising 
