424 
Combating Lousiness 
method serves merely to keep down the louse population within reason¬ 
able bounds; to be effective, however, it must be frequently repeated and 
this takes much time. Hand-picking and combing are best supplemented 
by head washing with soap and water, decoction of Peruvian bark or 
some other hairwash. Advantage should be taken of Howlett’s discovery 
(1917, p. 188) previously cited (p. 179), that if a comb warmed enough to 
be pleasantly hot to the hand be used, the lice abandon their “dugouts 
among the bases of the hairs” and “are removed with a very marked 
economy of time and labour,” the insects being repelled by the heat emanat¬ 
ing from the comb. The nits and lice are usually crushed between the 
fingers by habitues but their consignment to the fire is preferred by others. 
In more heavily infested heads it is practically impossible to remove the 
parasites by this method. 
Cutting and shaving the hair, already mentioned as a preventive (see 
p. 419), are efficacious methods of removing lice mechanically and con¬ 
stitute an ancient remedy. Shaving is very generally recommended in 
cases of severe infestation. It is a radical measure, for in the absence of 
hair upon which to lay their eggs, head-lice cannot persist on an indi¬ 
vidual unless perchance they acquire the habits of body-lice and learn to 
oviposit on clothing or spread to other hairy parts of the body (see p. 94). 
The shaving is greatly facilitated by previously clipping the hair as short 
as possible. The clipped and shorn hair should be collected on a large sheet 
of paper in which it can be rolled up and burnt. It may be necessary to 
leave areas of clipped hair in places that show scratches and scabs; such 
hairs should be cut down to near the base with a fine scissors. The 
shaving may be carried out either in a chair, when the person is lying 
down, or in a bath; for a bath and general soaping down and scrubbing 
should follow whenever possible, and be succeeded by a complete change 
of clothing. This should certainly be a routine practice in hospitals, 
prior to the admission of verminous patients to the wards. 
Merely cutting the hair short is insufficient for the mechanical re¬ 
moval of lice, because some of them cling closely to the skin and their 
eggs are laid very near to the roots of the hairs. The freshly laid un¬ 
hatched eggs are almost invariably found close to the hair root, at a 
distance of about 1 mm. from the skin, whilst the empty or shrivelled 
egg-shells occur further along the hair and their removal in numbers 
may convey the. false impression that clipping the hair short is sufficient. 
citations occur in the Supplementary Notes at the end of this publication. My friend 
Dr A. E. Shipley writes: “ I can, if you like, send you a score of examples of Lousing 
being used by the best classical English writers.” 
