18 BULLETIN 986, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Dr. Maurice C. Hall, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, reports 
excellent results from the use of sulphur ointment against the larve 
after they have become attached. 
Commercial alcohol (95 per cent) has been used by several ac- 
quaintances and by the writer himself to good advantage against 
the chiggers attached to the skin. When the free larve are im- 
mersed in alcohol and observed under the miscroscope they are seen 
to die in short order, usually in from 1 to 3 minutes. The alcohol 
is an excellent acaricide and also a good antiseptic for the unabraded 
or slightly abraded skin, and has a further advantageous effect in 
hardening the dermis. It should be applied quite freely and the ap- 
plication repeated two or three times. 
Any of the lighter oils ill the larve quite rapidly, and can be 
used to advantage against the larve if the latter are confined to 
a small area on the body. Sulphur acts slowly. but if applied with 
soap and allowed several minutes to act should give good results. 
PALLIATIVES. 
To those who go little afield and are thus ignorant of some of 
nature’s ways warnings that preventive measures should be taken 
are usually but little heeded, hence it is necessary to give directions 
in the use of palliatives—the most unsatisfactory of all measures. 
Undoubtedly most of the so-called palliatives are of value chiefly, 
if not entirely, because of their acaricide action or because they act 
antiseptically, or in both these manners. 
In the Panama Canal Zone, according to Dr. W. A. Taylor, Chief 
of the Bureau of Plant Industry, a saturated solution of salicylic acid 
in alcohol, with a little olive oil added, has been used to good advan- 
tage as a palliative. Both he and Mr. H. H. Bennett, of the Bureau 
of Soils, used this mixture with very beneficial results in the Canal 
Zone. 
In the Southern States, according to Mr. Bennett. butter or lard 
with a liberal mixture of table salt, or pure kerosene oil, is fre- 
quently used as a palhative. With regard to their benefit he says: 
“T am still not convinced that they are more than moderately 
efiicacious *. -*- 7:7 
Among the other substances recommended as palliatives are the 
following: Ammonia, cooking soda, dilute solution of iodine, cam- 
phor, and alcohol. Statements made to the effect that an acid toxin 
is injected by the larve are not based on observed fact or experi- 
mental demonstration. We do not know even that a toxin is injected 
by these acarids. As before stated, the intelligent use of palliatives 
awaits experimentation on the nature of chigger injury from the 
physiological standpoint. - 
