570 
Combating Lousiness 
either upon the person, or upon clothing that is being worn, is always a 
confession that men cannot be kept clean by direct means, through 
there being a flaw in the barrier of preventive measures. This flaw may 
be beyond the control of the medical offlcer and is commonly brought 
about by unclean men or effects escaping attention in various ways and 
serving to transmit vermin. 
Supplementary Disinfestation. 
When a unit evacuates barracks or hutments, all blankets and bedding 
left behind should be treated before reissue, the apartments should be 
thoroughly cleaned, the floors being sprayed or scrubbed down with 
insecticide solution or treated with a steam jet. 
In billets the floors should be similarly treated, and the walls, when 
possible, whitewashed; special attention should be given to cracks 
between the floor-boards. As suggested by Peacock (MS. I. 1918), it is 
well to post up a notice in billets for the men to read, the notice stating 
briefly the essential facts which a soldier should know regarding the 
methods of combating lousiness. 
Railway carriages, under ordinary circumstances, may be disinfested 
by scrubbing down all washable parts with insecticide solutions, after¬ 
wards drying off the iron work to prevent its rusting. Vans, and the like, 
may be adequately treated with a steam jet supplied from the. engine. 
Benzine vapour has been used in France for destroying lice in better 
class carriages but it is too expensive a procedure to employ on a large 
scale (p. 522, No. 370). A German newspaper, published during the war, 
illustrates what is doubtless the largest disinfector ever built, the 
structure being capable of admitting a whole railway carriage. The 
disinfector consists of a cylindrical steel tunnel into which the carriage 
is rolled, circular doors, sliding on cross rails, being run across the ends 
and bolted as in large steam disinfectors. Whether such monster dis¬ 
infectors are of practical utility or not cannot be stated; they savour 
rather of advertisement. 
Transport waggons may be washed down or sprayed with insecticide 
solutions or treated with a steam jet. 
Effects that stiffen from exposure to heat, especially rubber (including 
ground-sheets and macintoshes) and leather (unaffected by dry heat at 
ca. 65° C.) may be immersed in insecticide solutions and afterwards hung 
up to drain and dry. 
Furs should be disinfested by dry heat (55-65° C.) or exposure to CS 2 
vapour (see p. 525, No. 384). 
