G. H. F. Nuttall 
483 
with infested and disinfested articles respectively. Disregard of this 
simple rule may lead and has led to failure in the presence of the best 
installations. The personnel should be provided with washing facilities 
to be employed between shifts. Infested men handling disinfested 
articles may readily reinfest them. 
5. That clean articles have been stored, perhaps but temporarily, where 
infested effects have been kept. Clean and infested articles should be 
rigidly kept apart and separately stored. An annex of the simplest kind 
placed on either side of a disinfestor will answer the purpose. 
6. That carts or transport waggons used for the conveyance of infested 
articles are employed to transport clean effects. The vehicles should be 
first disinfested by means of a steam jet or by washing them down with 
insecticide solution. 
7. That a fundamental principle is often disregarded in disinfestation 
establishments, in that there is no separation of a clean side from an 
infested side, the clean articles becoming reinfested in various ways. 
Wherever possible the disinfestation plant should be arranged to meet 
this requirement (see Fig. 26,p. 561). A separate wall or fence may answer 
the purpose in the open, disinfested articles being hoisted over it. 
8. That disinfestation has been improperly carried out owing to 
undue haste, carelessness or ignorance. 
It is a common complaint that steam may be insufficient in destroying 
lice. Two such instances came under my notice over 20 years ago, the 
explanation in both cases being of course perfectly simple, i.e. the steam 
was not given time to penetrate the clothing. The statement by Busson 
(1915, p. 674) that steam was found ineffective in killing nits and that 
hot ironing had to be resorted to, affords but a similar instance of faulty 
method. 
Owing to the fact that nits remain attached to disinfested clothing 
the ignorant frequently blame the disinfestation process as inefficient, 
not knowing that dead nits and empty egg-shells are only removable 
with difficulty by hand. They have no more significance than the 
occasional presence of dead lice that have not been removed mechanically 
from clothing. 
As an amusing example of faulty methods erring on the heroic side, 
may be taken that recorded by Eckert (1915, pp. 918 et seq.) wherein the 
author describes a process for the destruction of vermin on a large scale 
in a sealed room by burning CS 2 to which flowers of Sulphur and Papricka 
were added. The mixture was placed in pans and ignited. Lice and 
nits were killed by an exposure of 2 hours. He treated the clothing 
