THE  AMEEiOAK 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
NOVEMBER,  igii 
INSECTS  DESTRUCTIVE  TO  BOOKS.^ 
(second  contribution.") 
By  William  R.  Reinick. 
"  The  man  who  marks  a  borrowed  book, 
And  makes  the  ends  and  corners  look 
Dog-eared  and  ragged  and  infirm, 
He  is  an  insect  and  a  worm." 
Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox.^ 
It  will  be  impossible  in  this  lecture  to  go  into  details  regarding 
the  various  series  of  experiments  that  have  been  made  and  studied 
in  order  to  obtain  the  results,  which  I  will  speak  of  this  evening, 
on  account  of  the  limit  of  time.  Some  of  my  remarks  will  appear 
to  some  researchers  tO'  be  the  words  of  one  lacking  an  imderstanding 
of  the  groundwork  of  science,  but  in  reply  to  those  who  doubt,  I  can 
only  say,  investigate  along-  the  same  lines  and  the  results  will  amply 
repay  you  for  your  time  and  labor. 
Paste-eaters. — The  statement  previously  made  by  me  to  the  effect 
that  the  paste  used  in  binding  was  often  eaten  by  the  larvae  of  insects 
hatched  from  eggs  that  were  originally  in  the  flour,  has  been  ques- 
tioued  on  the  ground  that  the  heat  necessary  to  boil  paste,  212°, 
would  have  killed  all  life.  How  this  challenge  could  have  been 
'made  by  anyone  who  had  experimented  on  the  vitality  of  eggs  under 
adverse  conditions  is  beyond  my  comprehension.  They  confuse  the 
life  that  has  hatched  with  the  life  within  the  egg.  Heat  no  doubt 
would  destroy  the  greater  portion  of  the  hfe  that  had  hatched,  but 
^Copyrighted  by  the  author,  191 1. 
lecture  delivered  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  1911. 
*  Froni  a  manuscript  in  the  author's  collection. 
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