PREVENTION 421 



Prevention. — Strict cleanliness in private homes or public 

 buildings prevents fleas from breeding in them. Uncared-for 

 carpets and straw mattings afford excellent breeding grounds 

 for the human flea, as do dusty cracks 

 between floor boards, unswept corners 

 under sinks, and any other place where 

 the eggs and young, undisturbed, may 

 obtain enough moisture to keep them 

 from drying up. The use of bare hard- 

 wood floors with rugs which can readily 

 be taken up and swept and thorough 

 sweeping in corners and under pieces 

 of furniture, sinks, etc., do not give 

 fleas an opportunity to breed in the 'v'^ ^i ■ \/ 

 home or in pubHc buildings, and are fj„. igg. Head of chicken 

 therefore valuable preventive measures, infested with chicken flea, 



r\ rxi_uj- f-jj' Echidnophaga gallinacea. 



One of the best means of riddmg an (^fter Bishopp.) 

 infested house of fleas is to sprinlde 



the floors with naphthaline and close the rooms for a day or 

 two. This will effectually kill all adult and larval fleas, and the 

 eggs may then be destroyed by washing the floors with hot soap- 

 suds, a five per cent formalin solution or one-tenth per cent 

 solution of corrosive sublimate. It is claimed that alum swept 

 into carpets or a solution of alum soaked into carpet paper pre- 

 vents fleas from breeding. 



Fleas are very susceptible to fumigation with hydrocyanic 

 acid gas. Experiments by the U. S. Public Health Service show 

 that fleas succumb to the amount of gas generated by two and 

 one-half ounces of potassium cyanide in 1000 cubic feet of space. 

 Fumigation with sulphur is also effective. Details of methods 

 of fumigation with these substances will be found on p. 383. 

 Sodium fluoride in the form of a crystalline powder scattered 

 on floors or blown about by means of a dust-gun will probably 

 prove effective against fleas, as it has against cockroaches 

 and other insects. It is inexpensive and not dangerous to 

 handle. 



Various traps for the capture of adult fleas have been devised, 

 one of the simplest and most effective being to clothe the legs in 

 sticky fly paper, and wander about in the infested rooms. A 

 badly infested building in Cornell University was cleared of fleas 



