60 
Lice and Disease 
rat, monkey and man; from monkey to monkey; from man to man, 
monkey and rat. By inoculating a Cercopithecus with 60 lice crushed 
18 hours after feeding on infective blood, he obtained, however, a 
positive result. 
Sergent and Foley (v. 1910, pp. 337-373) in Algeria, noted the 
increase in the number of cases of relapsing fever in cold weather, and 
a marked reduction during the warm season 1 . The indigenous popula¬ 
tion wear the same clothes day and night for weeks, and this favours 
the propagation of body-lice, especially in winter, when vermin are 
found on nearly all natives. In summer, the children are almost free 
from vermin because they wear little clothing, frequently nothing 
more than a shirt. Body-lice were found on all affected persons. 
The authors next infected a monkey by inoculation with the sub¬ 
stance of lice crushed 5-6 days after the insects had fed on a relapsing 
fever patient in the middle or during the course of the first attack. 
They infected two women by means of lice placed beneath their clothing 
and by means of blankets which harboured lice that had fed upon a man 
two days after he had suffered from his first attack of fever. They 
gave the name of Spirochaeta berbera to the strain of S. recurrentis they 
encountered in cases of relapsing fever in Africa. They repeat that 
bugs could be excluded as vectors of the disease 2 . 
In the winter of 1910-11, Sergent, Glillot and Foley (12. vii. 1911, 
pp. 438-440) observed an epidemic of relapsing fever in Algiers. They 
examined 17 patients, all of whom were lousy and belonged to a class 
of men who huddled together at the midday siesta on the harbour 
quay. The authors succeeded in infecting five out of eighteen monkeys 
that were inoculated with crushed lice collected from the patients 
1-9 days previously. In four of these monkeys the incubation period 
1 Casaux (rv. 1914, p. 142) reports that relapsing fever also prevails in winter in Tonkin 
when the natives are confined in their huts; he regards lice as probable carriers. 
2 For the earlier work on Cimex as possible carriers of relapsing fever, see Nuttall 
(vi. 1908), Note on the behaviour of Spirochaetae in Acantliia lectularia, Parasitology, 
i. 143-151, wherein, besides the author’s experiments, are cited those of Tictin, Karlinski, 
Schaudinn, Christy! Breinl, Kinghorn and Todd, and Klodnitzky. To these may be 
added the work of (1) Sergent and Foley (v. 1910, p. 370) wherein it was found that the 
spirochaetes usually disappear within the bug within 24 hours after they have fed upon 
infective blood. (2) Stefansky (1915), who appears to be ignorant of all previous work 
on the subject, judging from the review of his paper (“Do bugs play a part in the trans¬ 
mission of relapsing fever?” PycCKlir Bpa x lT>, No. 11, reviewed in MejH HIIIICKOC 
06o3pinie, Lxxxm. 377), wherein it is stated that he fed bugs on relapsing fever cases 
and afterwards on monkeys with negative results; the spirochaetes in bugs vanished in 
two days, and the progeny of infected bugs were non-infective. 
