Gr. H. F. Nuttall 
437 
The objections to ironing as a means of disinfestation are: that it is 
not applicable where very large amounts of soldiers’ clothing have to be 
treated; that it requires a large staff; that it takes a competent person 
about 15 minutes to iron each soldier’s clothes; that the inexperi¬ 
enced ironer may scorch and injure the clothing; that the clothing 
requires to be handled a good deal in the process, it being likely that 
some lice will be scattered about and possibly picked up again on the 
ironed clothing or by those handling it. With these limitations, ironing 
constitutes an effective measure when conscientiously carried out. The 
ironing should be followed by beating or better by stiff brushing to 
dislodge dead lice. Insecticides may be ironed into seams (see p. 533, 
No. 411). 
Hot rollers have been used in lieu of flat-irons in the disinfestation 
of blankets, but they are unsuitable for clothing, because of buttons, 
etc., besides which their use implies an expensive installation (Peacock 
MS.). 
Another simple and perhaps equally effective measure has been 
suggested by Heymann (18. vm. 1915, p. 314). It consists in wrapping 
the infested clothes around tins containing boiling brine (two handfuls of 
salt per litre of water) and covering them on the outside with tarpaulin. 
The brine boils at 108° C., and the temperature of the clothing attains 
70-80° C. (see thermal death-point of lice, pp. 430-1). This method might 
very well serve a useful purpose under some conditions. To make sure 
that the requisite degree of heat has been attained within the clothing 
apply one of the methods described on p. 481. 
Baking oven. The destruction of lice on verminous clothes by means 
of the baking oven is a very old method that has been widely used. The 
articles to be heated should be placed loosely in the oven. 
The objections to the use of the oven are: that the number of house¬ 
hold ovens is restricted and insufficient for army purposes, or where 
large amounts of clothing have to be periodically treated, that it is very 
difficult even for an experienced hand so to regulate the temperature of 
the oven that the contained clothing is not either scorched or insuffi¬ 
ciently heated; that, as a German author remarks, it is not “appetizing” 
to bake bread in an oven that has previously been used for such purposes. 
Where, as Wulker (v. 1915, p. 630) reports from the German Eastern 
Front, the baking oven can be regulated at 60-70° C., it gives satis¬ 
factory results with the limitations mentioned. 
Substitutes for the baking oven have been devised during the present 
war and a description of some of these constructions follows. 
