378 BEDBUGS AND THEIR ALLIES 



moff in Turkestan and Cornwall in India were unable to infect 

 bedbugs with parasites of oriental sore even when the bugs were 

 fed directly on the ulcers. On the other hand, the fact that one 

 species of Cimex, C. pipistrelli, transmits a trypanosome disease 

 of bats would lead one to suspect their ability to transmit a 

 Leishmanian disease, since the two groups of parasites are 

 certainly near relatives. Several workers have incriminated 

 bedbugs as carriers of European relapsin-g fever, especially in 

 Serbia and in the southeastern part of Europe, but there can be 

 little doubt but that lice are the normal transmitters of the 

 European as well as the North African form of relapsing fever. 

 In Moscow, for instance, Bayon found that relapsing fever was 

 practically unknown among the better class of people who were 

 personally clean, even though living in bug-infested quarters, 

 whereas the fever was very prevalent among the lower classes, 

 most of whom were lousy, even though they were kept in hos- 

 pitals where no bugs existed. On the other hand, Hagler, who 

 worked with the American Red Cross expedition in Serbia in 

 1915, points out that while typhus disappeared with the exter- 

 mination of lice, relapsing fever continued to develop in the 

 Belgrade hospital until the latter was fumigated for bedbugs. 

 The Indian bedbug, C. hemipterus, is believed by some workers 

 to be a common transmitter of Indian relapsing fever, though 

 evidence points strongly to the instrumentality or lice and ticks 

 in spreading the disease. Spirochceta carteri, the organism of 

 Indian relapsing fever, has been observed to remain aHve for 

 from four to seven days in the alimentary canal of bugs which 

 have fed on infected monkeys, but bugs seldom become infected 

 from human cases. 



As remarked elsewhere, bedbugs have been found capable of 

 acting as intermediate hosts for the trypanosome, T. cruzi, of 

 Chagas' disease, but they usually remain infective for a much 

 shorter time than do bugs of the genus Triatoma. Bedbugs have 

 been found capable of transmitting the infection to guinea-pigs 

 in from 21 hours to 77 days after an infective feed. 



That bedbugs may act as mechanical spreaders of various 

 diseases is unquestionable. Experiments show that the bacilli 

 of bubonic plague can develop in the gut of bugs, though more 

 slowly than in fleas, and with a much higher mortality for the 

 bugs. That they may act as transmitters of the disease is quite 



