G. H. F. Nuttall 
97 
Perroncito (1901, p. 596) records that in acute and chronic diseases, 
especially on the approach of death, capitis scatter from the scalp in large 
numbers over the face and body; the Italian hospital attendants describe 
the condition as an explosion of lousiness: “scoppiata la pidocchieria.” 
In the case of corporis, the scattering of the insects is perhaps less 
striking, because many encounter a mechanical obstacle to their 
wanderings outward from the clothing, nevertheless they frequently 
wander away from persons in fever and they scatter themselves about 
the bedding of those that have died. They have been seen in large 
numbers upon the sheets and blankets, crawling about for a couple of 
days in the vicinity of the dead, as credible eye-witnesses inform me. 
The wandering in such cases is due to hunger, or, in febrile conditions, 
it is apparently owing to the high temperature and possibly the repellant 
degree of moisture of the patient’s skin. The danger of sitting upon 
the beds of typhus and relapsing fever patients was pointed out long 
ago when it was not known that these diseases were conveyed by lice 
(see p. 47). 
(3) Contact with the clothing, bedding, brushes, etc., previously used 
by infested persons. This is a common way in which lice are disseminated. 
To put on verminous clothing 1 or to sleep in infested blankets or bedding, 
is a certain method of becoming infested with corporis or capitis. Sobel 
(1913, pp. 656-664), writing from a large experience of capitis in school 
children of New York, states that the problem of infestation is largely 
a home problem, reinfestation occurring there frequently through 
members of the household and bedding, clothes, towels, combs, brushes, 
etc., all of which are often in common use. Efforts at eradication in 
schools only are consequently bound to fail, because direct infestation 
there is relatively uncommon although it of course occurs. The beds 
of common lodging-houses (see p. 87) and similar institutions in various 
countries, are constantly being infested by vermin dropped by transitory 
lousy occupants. In one of the best hotels in Berlin, the proprietor told 
me some years ago that he always sought to exclude even the highest 
nobility among the travellers from some countries because they so fre¬ 
quently infested his guests’ beds, thus necessitating a formidable process 
of de-lousing which took away much of the profits their sojourn entailed. 
In our armies at present in the field, much blame has been attached 
1 Galewsky (m. 1915, p. 285), who was in medical charge of prisoners at Konigs- 
briick, reports that 5000 French prisoners who were almost louse-free were mixed with 
9000 Russians who were almost all lousy; the prisoners exchanged clothing with the 
result that the French became infested. 
Parasitology x 
7 
