550 
Combating Lousiness 
Ref. 
No. 
in a water bath for 2 hrs, strained, and yellow beeswax (10 g.) 
added. 
Oleum staphisagriae dil. 1 pt ;md olive or almond oil 6-12 pts 
with perfume (some aromatic oil, q.s.) is recommended by Frazer 
for capitis. Apply to the head in the ordinary way; one liberal 
application kills the lice. Repeat treatment in 7-10 days to destroy 
the larvae that may hatch out of the unaffected nits from the first 
treatment. Frazer recommends its occasional use as a prophylactic. 
An old remedy, stated to be also efficacious for corporis. Judging 
from Expts 224, 356, staveacre acts by contact only; the decoction 
killed pubis immersed therein for 5 minutes. 
Styrax, for lice, see footnote 3 on previous page. 
464. Sulphur, for corporis and pubis. 
For corporis, according to information supplied (9. ix. 1915) by 
Colonel W. H. Horrocks, C.B., and Major P. S. Lelean, R.A.M.C., 
it was tried on a large scale at the British front in France. “Far 
from doing any good it was reported that it only seemed to make 
the vermin more active.” Sulphur was therefore struck off the list 
of remedies employed in the army. 
Precipitated sulphur was recommended in Germany by Eysell 
as a prophylactic, 2 tablespoonfuls being dusted inside the shirt 
and its sleeves, and inside the drawers, the effect being stated to 
last for weeks and no injury to the skin being produced. When a 
man has worn sulphured clothes 24 hrs and has sweated, H 2 S is 
evolved and is supposed to kill the lice. Eysell points out that 
flowers of sulphur should not be used because the crystals irritate the 
skin contrary to the precipitate which is an amorphous powder. 
Shipley cites various persons as recommending flowers of sulphur 
dusted into the clothes, and taken internally, whereby H 2 S is given 
off from the skin so that silver isblackened in the pockets (Harman). 
Dr H. H. Tomkins of Liverpool (ca. 1885) is quoted as stating that 
sulphur rubbed in the underclothes of patients wearing plaster of 
Paris jackets and tormented by lice beneath the jackets, gave 
results that proved an “absolute success.” Lounsbury reported 
the use of sulphur bags worn by troops in S. Africa. Pouillaud also 
recommends sulphur. 
Hot sulphur baths are mentioned by Nysten (1858) as a slow 
means of ridding the person of lice, especially in the case of pubis. 
(Expts 95-96 are not convincing.) 
