Municipal Bat Roost, erected by the City Council of San Antonia, Texas, March
17, 1916.
It was called the filth
disease. The invention of electricity and the washing machine was the cause
for the great drop in smallpox seen in the 20th century -- not vaccination.
Vaccination is the the
greatest crime against humanity. It is assault with a deadly weapon. The
vaccine that the regime in Washington and the medical profession are
planning to use on the American people has nothing to do with smallpox. It is
probably a strain of the deadly 1918 virus that was falsely called the Spanish
Flu and that killed more people than any other plague in history.
Kill bedbugs not people!!
Vital Links
Résumé of Experiments on Variola by Dr. Campbell
Résumé of Experiments on Variola.
By CHARLES A. R.
CAMPBELL, M. D.
San Antonio, Texas.
Mr. President and Members
of the Bexar County Medical Society:
There must be some motive for a member of the same professional household to
keep in the background such a work as I am about to present for your
consideration this evening. This motive is that I hoped some avenue might
present itself permitting me to continue the work to the point of carrying out
further experiments to such a degree of scientific certainty as would place it
beyond the possibility of contradiction. It was my ambition to go into Mexico,
where, with knowledge of the language and customs of the people, I could have
obtained the cooperation of the "powers that be," and of the medical
profession, and could there have completed the investigation. There never was
a doubt in mind that I could have had this cooperation, as it was freely
offered to me from that country, but the lack of finance was the insuperable
barrier.
As it is now my intention
to publish this work, though I do not know when or where, I desire out of
respect to my home professional brothers and home society to present it to you
first.
The work of the Eradication
of Malaria by the Cultivation of Bats, The Mosquitoes' Natural Enemy and
Destroyer, on which I have been engaged, as you are all aware, for the past
twenty years, is more important and far-reaching in its benefits to mankind
than this work, and I purpose for the rest of my days to concentrate all of my
energies, spare time, and money on the continued studies of that most
benevolent, though misunderstood creature, the common bat.
I desire to return thanks
before this Society to my good friend, Dr. W. L. Barker, who, appreciating my
endeavors, had me placed in charge of the Pest House, where I found
opportunities of pursuing this research on smallpox, which I could not have
had without his kindly intervention. I also owe my thanks to Mr. Thomas Patino,
my head nurse, who is a highly valued employee and most kind and sympathetic
to the unfortunates under his care.
The papers in the order of
their presentation are, "Resume of Experiments on Variola," "My Observations
of Bed Bugs," and Dr. John Watts' valuable work and observations on this
disease, which he presents under the caption of "Eradication of Smallpox
without Vaccination or Disinfection." The author made Dr. Watts thoroughly
acquainted with the result of his smallpox-bedbug investigation, on account of
the Doctor's going to locate in Mexico, where the disease is so common, and
requested him to continue the work in that country, on the lines indicated in
the above mentioned papers. How well he carried on the investigation his paper
will tell.
Some years ago, while
traveling in Mexico, I learned that the Mexican mothers of the lower classes
find a great deal of consolation when their children have had the small pox.
They regard it as inevitable; and, in order to get through with this trouble
as soon as possible, they place the well children upon the same bed as the one
having the smallpox, so that they may become infected with the disease.
I was also told by these lowly people
that those who sleep on the outside of the houses, upon nothing more, perhaps,
than a sheep's skin or raw hide cot or bed, usually escape the disease --
hence the mother places the children who are well upon the same bed with the
sick ones. This information was kept in mind by me until I had occasion to see
a few cases in the City of San Antonio, Texas. In considering this malady, I
quickly became impressed with two distinctive peculiarities of it, viz: Its
being a disease of the winter and of the coldest climates, and that, as a
rule, it is confined to the lower or filthy classes.
Having followed very
closely the current literature concerning the brilliant work done by Drs.
Reed, Carroll, and Agramonte in yellow fever, the above peculiarities caused
me hypothetically to ascribe to the bedbug the quality of being the diffusing
agent of variola. (As to the bedbug's power of resistance to intense cold,
water, and starvation, see my "Observation on Bedbugs.")
Assuming that bedbugs are
the only diffusing agents of this loathsome disease, then our present
knowledge of its being "air-borne," or of its being transmitted by fomites,
must be all wrong, therefore the principal work here mentioned is the
demonstration of its non-contagiousness by means of clothing, bedding,
hangings --in short, fomites.
I then began to experiment
with this disease directly by contact and to expose some person to it who had
not had it. I selected as this person one whose movements I could at all times
control and understand, and, therefore, I chose myself. As even the air
itself, without contact, is considered sufficient to convey this disease, and
touching the clothes of a smallpox patient considered equivalent to
contracting it, I exposed myself with the same impunity as my pest-house
keeper, who is immune, having had the smallpox. After numerous exposures, made
in the ordinary manner, by going from house to house where the disease was and
demanding, under legal authority, the removal of the patients, as well as
members of the family, to the pest house, I have never conveyed this disease
to my family, or to any of my patients or friends, although I did not
disinfect myself or my clothes nor take any precautions whatever, except to be
sure that no bedbugs got about my clothing.
Another one of my
experiments was thoroughly to beat a rug in a room, only eight or ten feet
square, from which had just been removed a smallpox patient. This rug had been
given to the negro family in question by a white person after his family had
utilized it until it was useless for them, and thereafter it had been used for
years by the said negro family. I beat this rug in the room until the air was
stifling, and remained therein for thirty minutes. This represented the
respiratory as well as the digestive systems as accepted avenues of infection.
While I was exposing my person to this experiment of inhaling particles of
organic, as well as micro-organic, matter, I never lost sight of the fact that
I was engaged in trifling with the system of knowledge which had been handed
down from generation to generation, each one accepting as true what the
preceding one had written. I also remembered that, if such men as composed the
scientific expedition to Cuba for the investigation of yellow fever had
adhered to the old-time and accepted theories that bedding, carpets, clothing,
hangings -- in short fomites --were the conveyors of yellow fever, we would
not now have the knowledge which these gentlemen so nobly acquired and
generously gave to the public in the interest of mankind, consequently I
continued my experiments. After inhaling the dust from that rug, I examined my
sputum microscopically the following morning and found cotton and woolen
fibres, pollen, and comminuted manure, as also bacteria of many kinds.
Convinced that I had given
my respiratory and digestive systems ample opportunities to afford avenues of
infection, from that time on I mingled freely with my family, patients, and
friends; but, for the first fourteen days after the experiment of beating the
rug and inhaling the dust, I slept in my office for fear of conveying the
disease to my family.
The next experiment was the
exposure of two city carpenters, two laborers, and myself. Three of these men
had never been vaccinated, and the fourth only in infancy. This experiment
consisted in tearing down an old privy at the detention camp or pest house,
which privy had been used four or five years by smallpox patients only. It was
constructed of 1 x 12 inch slats and boards. With hatchets and levers the old
structure was soon razed; and the foul-smelling lumber was carried by each of
us a distance of one hundred yards and neatly re-constructed.
As the day was very hot and
our water supply some distance from the work, I placed a bucket of water about
ten feet from the work and in such a direction with the wind that the dust
from the sawing and nailing of the old boards would fall into the water. Of
course, the laborers did not observe my object in so doing, and they and
myself all drank freely of the water till noon. After dinner all of us worked
on that foul-smelling structure and drank of that same water till 'evening,
when the work was completed. None of us ever felt any bad effects from our
exposure. I had these men under my observation for fourteen days after this
'experiment.
In five instances where the
disease made its appearance in the homes of negro washerwomen, I found two and
three weeks' washing laundered and ready to be delivered to the owners. It is
a matter of common knowledge that negro washerwomen, when ironing clothes,
place them upon beds to keep them from becoming wrinkled, and these articles
of clothing, when discovered in an infected house, are generally burned by the
health authorities, the owners being reimbursed from public funds; but in each
of the above instances I took the clothes to the pest-house grounds, and,
spreading them upon the grass, I carefully searched each piece of clothing for
bugs. Not being able to find any bedbugs on any piece, I returned all the
clothing to the owners without any disinfection whatever. These clothes did
not convey the disease to anyone. Anita H., a Mexican child, four years of
age, never vaccinated and who had never had the disease, was taken to the pest
house, where she took a baby out of the crib and played with it about four
hours, hugging and kissing it and riding it in a perambulator around the
grounds; but, although this baby was covered with pustules of smallpox, and
although we took no precautions whatever (the girl's mother having agreed to
this experiment), the girl did not acquire the disease.
J. C., brought to the pest
house in a vesicular stage, made an uneventful recovery after passing through
the typical states. In this case I caused the bed clothes of his bed to be
undisturbed when he recovered. This same bed, without any change in the bed
clothes, was then occupied by L. M. This individual had never been vaccinated
nor had smallpox, and understood that he occupied this bed as an experiment.
He did not acquire the disease.
P. H., a Mexican,
vaccinated in infancy, who freely mingled with the smallpox patients in the
discharge of his duties as night watchman at the pest house, keeping up the
fires and remaining all night, did not contract the disease.
A. C., decidedly strumous,
never vaccinated nor had the smallpox, freely mingled with smallpox patients
in all of the stages, playing cards with them, eating and sleeping in the
infected tents, and has continued to do so for more than two years.
Mrs. T. P., wife of the
Pest-House keeper, aged26, vaccinated in infancy, acts as nurse and cook and
freely mingles with the female patients.
Master E. P., and sister,
aged respectively eleven and nine, the former vaccinated nine years ago, the
latter unsuccessfully, play with children in all of the stages of smallpox and
play with the toys of the little patients, without the least harm.
Personally, I have not only
come into direct contact with smallpox patients many times, but have taken off
and rubbed my outer clothes on the beds of the patients and then returned to
the city and mingled freely with my family, friends, and patients, without
disinfecting at all.
In one instance, which I
believe is worthy of special mention, a man, his wife, and four children were
here, and three of these children became infected with the smallpox. I took
all of them to the Pest House, and as all of them preferred to stay in one
room, I placed them together. The man and his wife had previously had the
disease, and only one child escaped it. I kept them at the Pest House until
the eighteenth day after the period of desquamation on the part of the case
developing last. They were returned home upon a Saturday morning. Observe that
this child, although living in the same room with the patients at the Pest
House, had not acquired the smallpox, after being exposed to it all of the
time for a period of six weeks; yet upon the fifth day after returning home,
this child acquired the initial fever. I then examined their house and found
it to be literally alive with bedbugs.
In addition to these
experiments, it should be remembered that I had at the Pest House half a dozen
employees, who washed, scrubbed tents, 'etc., and these persons were employed
by me especially because they were non-immune -- and yet none of them ever
contracted the disease.
Among some of the cases
coming under my observation and care, which did not originate here, is the
following. The patient, a girl of eleven years, had a fairly-developed case,
and was at one of our hotels. I took this patient and her father and mother to
the Pest House, in the meantime locking the door of the room at the hotel and
leaving orders that no one be allowed to enter it until my return. This room
had been occupied two days and nights by the patient. Upon my return I
carefully inspected the bed and the entire
room, particularly the walls and ceiling,
and not finding any bedbugs, I told the hotel proprietor that the room was
again all right; and it was from that time on occupied. All of the occupants
were kept under careful observation, but not a case developed in any of the
persons occupying the room.
Another case was that of a
little girl who was seized by the disease in Mexico about eight hours before
reaching San Antonio. This little patient's family consisted of her father,
mother, and little brother, eight years old. I took them all (under protest)
to the Pest House. The man I allowed to leave and go to the city and return,
as he pleased; and, with my consent, he procured -a horse and buggy from a
livery stable and took his wife riding every day. At night they went to the
theatre, returning to the Pest House to sleep. He also bought a doll for the
little girl; and she played with it, being at the time thoroughly covered with
smallpox. She made a dress for this doll, slept with it at night, kissed it,
and played with it continually, until about the fourth day, when she became
displeased with it; and after some consultation, her father returned it to the
store where it was purchased, and exchanged it for a larger doll. The clerk
from whom the purchase was made was kept under secret observation for a long
time, but nothing developed from the exchange.
A woman, returning from
Mexico, stopped over in Eagle Pass to rest, as the "small of her back was
nearly breaking in two;" she placed a plaster on her back to obtain relief,
resuming her journey the next day. A day or two after her arrival in San
Antonio she developed smallpox and was taken to the Pest House. The day being
cold and the Pest House some distance from her room, she sent out and bought a
fine blanket to cover herself on the road, using it as a shawl. On arriving at
the Pest House, the room being nicely heated, she took the blanket off, placed
it on a chair,and got into bed. One of the attendants overheard the keeper's
wife ask her husband to bring her from the city a new blanket for their new
baby, three weeks old. When he left the Pest House to get this patient,
thinking the new blanket was the one intended for the new baby, he folded it
up and brought it to the keeper's wife, who proceeded to wrap up her baby
snugly in it. The mistake was not discovered for one week-yet the baby did not
acquire the disease.
In the case of the woman,
it is curious to note that the area of skin covered by the plaster already
referred to, which had been left on the patient's back, was not attacked by
the disease, the underlying skin remaining perfectly normal, although there
was not a half inch square on her body that was not marked by the disease.
After making a great many
of those experiments at the Pest House (it may be well to say that I had
previously destroyed all the bedbugs) I procured a large flag-pole, with a
large yellow flag, and made the occasion of the planting of the pole and the
flag-raising a little feast-afternoon, with a banquet, to which were invited
the City Council and the officers of the City Government. Liquid and solid
refreshments were served, speech-making was indulged in, laudatory of the
experiments, by some of the aldermen and other officials present, who knew
well of the work I was doing. Evidently they must have had some faith in it,
when they so gladly came to a Pest House (and almost in direct contact with
smallpox patients) to attend a banquet and honor me by their presence. Some
eighteen or twenty.,attended and remained two or three hours; one alderman in
particular, who had never been vaccinated or had the disease, came in direct
contact with a patient whose body was covered with the characteristic
eruptions.
The most important
observation on the medical aspect of this disease is the caehexia with which
it is invariably associated and which is actually the soil requisite for its
different degrees of virulence. I refer to the scorbutic cachexia. Among the
lower -classes of people this particular acquired constitutional perversion of
nutrition is most prevalent, primarily on account of their poverty, but also
because of the fact that they care little or nothing for fruits or vegetables.
That a most intimate connection exists between variola and scorbutus is
evidenced by the fact that it is most prevalent among the poor or filthy class
of people; that it is more prevalent in winter, when the anti-scorbutics are
scarce and high priced; and, finally, that the removal of this perversion of
nutrition will so mitigate the virulence of this malady as positively to
prevent the pitting or pocking of smallpox.
A failure of the fruit crop
in any particularly large area is always followed the succeeding winter by the
presence of smallpox. My experience is limited to eighty-eight cases of that
disease in the Pest-House, and my attention has constantly been directed to
the establishing of the fact of the non-contagiousness of fomites and to the
prevention of the pitting or pocking by the malady. That the pitting or
pocking can be positively prevented I am absolutely certain, for in the above
number of cases I had only one patient who became pocked and this was done
intentionally. In all of the cases of smallpox that have originated here I
have always found bedbugs; and where patients suffering with this disease were
brought here and placed in premises free from these vermin, the disease did
not spread to persons living with the patient. This has occurred in many
cases, and in all stages of the disease.
|
"Disinfection" tent at
San Antonio Pest House. The only disinfection done was to look for bedbugs
in the clothing of the patients or those to be held in detention. |
The deluxe quarters of
the Pest House: author's horse and buggy. |
Rows of tents for persons
held in detention on account of having been exposed to smallpox.
Ambulance House, Feed
Room, and Stable, connected with the San Antonio Pest House.
My Observations on Bedbugs by Dr. Campbell
My Observations on Bedbugs.
By CHARLES A. R.
CAMPBELL, M. D.
San Antonio, Texas.
The discovery in the year
1880, by Lavaran, that malaria is communicated to the human race by means of
the Anophele mosquito; the discovery in 1894, by Kitasato, of the plague
bacillus, and, later, that it could be transmitted by fleas; the brilliant
work done by Drs. Reed, Carroll, and Agramonte, and by Professor Guiteras,
demonstrating that yellow fever is communicated by the Stegomyia fasciata
mosquito, have resulted in a most careful and exhaustive examination into the
nature and habits of other insects with reference to the probability or
possibility that other diseases (the manner of whose transmission has not yet
been conclusively determined) may be communicated to the human race by such
insects.
Believing that a close
relationship existed between variola and bedbugs, I began in the year 1900 to
study the nature and habits of the bedbug, and I am now of the firm opinion
that I have established this particular insect as being the diffusing agent of
smallpox.
The bedbug seems to be of a
very ancient origin, as I find that it was supposed by the ancient Romans to
have medicinal properties, this having been mentioned by Pliny; but I have
been unable to find that it was ever known to exist among the Aztecs or the
North American Indians or upon any portion of the Western Hemisphere until the
advent of the white man. The Romans gave it the name "Cimex
Lectularius"-"cimex" meaning a bug, and "lectularius" being simply an
adjective, pertaining to a bed or couch.
The bedbug is now such a
common insect as to be known to all the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere,
if not of the whole civilized world; and in different parts of the country it
is called by different names--for instance, in the State of New York bedbugs
are styled "red coats," and they are also called by their ordinary name of
bedbugs; in Boston they are generally termed "chinches," or "chintzes;" and in
Baltimore they are known by the appellation "mahogany flats." In early English
times the common name was "wall louse. "
It seems to be reasonably
certain that in very ancient times bedbugs were winged insects, and that they
flew about from place to place, and even at the present day they retain
rudimentary pads, which it is believed, were originally a part of the wings of
the insect. It is also believed that as this insect became more and more
closely associated with the human race the necessity for its flying about to
obtain its food became less and less, until it gradually lost this means of
locomotion.
The bedbug, however, has
not lost one of its chief characteristics, viz: its distinct and disagreeable
odor, so well known to those that are familiar with it as the "buggy" odor.
This peculiar odor is not confined to the bedbug only --a great number of bugs
of even different and distinct species possess it; and it is regarded as a
means of protection to them against their natural enemies, because it renders
them distasteful and obnoxious. Now, the bedbug has none of the enemies any of
the other bugs have, viz : insectivorous birds--and its odor is really a
detriment to it instead of an advantage, as this odor often leads to its
detection. From this it can be deduced that the odor having persisted through
the changes already mentioned, extending over centuries of time, the bug still
retains it for protection against microbic activities, as doubtless the said
odor is due to some antiseptic ether or organic acid.
The hairs which cover the
body of this insect are most peculiar from the fact that their ends terminate
in two-pronged forks, and when annoyed or teased in the cracks which they
inhabit bedbugs will invariably turn around with their backs towards you, so
as better to protect themselves from being drawn from the crevices in which
they may be located, as each hair presents a distinct anchor, and particularly
as against the long feelers of the common cockroach, and also as against the
tugging of another one of its most formidable enemies, the little red ant. The
eggs of the bedbug hatch on the seventh or eighth day after being laid, and,
if carefully observed, it will be noticed that, within from two to three days
before hatching, two bright scarlet spots will appear on the inside and on the
exit end of the egg when viable. If these spots do not appear, the egg is not
viable. Gasoline, which is so effective in destroying bedbugs, will not
destroy their eggs; and, to the chagrin of the careful housekeeper, a new and
full size crop of bugs is again in possession of the bed within a few days
after using gasoline. This is readily accounted for by the fact that the eggs
can be soaked in gasoline and yet not lose their viability.
In order to make sure of
their destruction, I believe that the application of a saturated alcoholic
solution of corrosive sublimate, used with constant vigilance, will do the
work, as this solution not only kills the adult insects but, by combining with
the albumen of the egg, renders the latter sterile.
The ability of these
insects to live for a very long time without food of any kind is remarkable.
Careful observers have stated that, of their own personal knowledge, houses
which have been empty for eighteen months at a time, when again inhabited by
people have been found to be so full of these insects as to be un tenantable.
I have made experiments which convince me of the truth of this
assertion--although the experiments did not run for such a great length of
time. I once put a bedstead containing many of these insects into a room by
itself, and placed each one of its legs in a can partially filled with
kerosene, so as to prevent their escape. After keeping the bedstead locked up
in the room for four months, the insects were found in apparently the same
condition as they were before the experiment was started.
The ability of bedbugs to
remain under water for an indefinite time is also established by the following
experiment: I first took a pole about seven feet long, and putting a number of
these bugs on one end of it, I placed this end almost at the bottom of a tank
containing about five feet of water; immediately the bugs began crawling
through the water and up the pole; I then changed ends and reversed the
operation, submerging the bugs on top of the pole again in the water, and I
continued this operation for five hours without intermission--but to all
appearances the bugs were not in the least injured, notwithstanding the fact
that, in addition to the submersion, they had traveled a distance of nearly
550 yards.
On another occasion I took
some bugs and placed them in a glass receiver, the outlet of which was covered
with a piece of gauze. The inlet of the receiver was then placed over a faucet
of hydrant water; the water was turned on and permitted to run for five hours;
the current of the water forced the bugs against the gauze covering the
outlet, and they were thus continuously submerged for that length of time;
but, as soon as the stream was turned off and the water removed, the insects
showed that they had suffered no injury or inconvenience from the submersion.
One of the characteristics of the bedbug is its cannibalistic nature. It has
seven horny bands, which constitute its abdominal cavity, and when it is not
engorged these bands lie close together. When, however, it has fed and is
thoroughly engorged, it presents a thin membrane connecting these bands,
something on the order of an inflated bellows. It is this thin membrane that
is pierced by their young, and also by the stronger bugs. Doubtless this
characteristic, more than anything else, has served it so admirably in
retaining its existence and activity in association with its unwilling host.
One of the most remarkable
things in connection with this insect is its powers of resistance to cold. In
connection with other investigations I made, in which I believed this parasite
was destined to play an important part, it became necessary, in my opinion to
determine if these insects could resist a very low degree of temperature, and
for a long time, without injury. I therefore procured a hermetically sealed
glass fruit jar, holding a quart. I then cut round pieces out of a woolen
blanket to fit loosely the inner diameter of the jar, and placed a number of
these pieces in the jar, together with some three dozen bedbugs, alternating
the discs of blanket and the bugs. After sealing the jar so as to exclude
water, I suspended it in one of the brine tanks used for making ice at one of
our ice factories; and in a short time the jar was tightly frozen in a
two-hundred pound cake of ice. This cake was allowed to remain in the brine
tank, where the temperature is only 14 degrees above zero, and the cake stayed
as when first frozen for a period of 244 hours. At the expiration of that
time, after melting the ice and removing and opening the jar, the insects were
found to be in as good condition as when originally placed therein.
The cunning of these
insects is most remarkable, and it appears that they have, to a certain
extent, the power of reasoning. An example of this kind was given me by Mr. N.
P. Wright of San Antonio, a very reliable citizen and close observer. He is
ready to make affidavit to the story, which runs as follows: At one time he
had all the furniture in his house packed up, except a cot left in one room
upon which to sleep, as all of his family were absent on a visit. This cot was
placed about one foot from the wall of the room; and, while lying on the cot,
he happened to observe a bedbug slowly crawling up on the wall; out of
curiosity he watched its movements, and was much surprised to see that when
the insect was about four or five feet from the floor-- this being about two
feet higher than the cot--it apparently sprang from the side of the wall and
fell upon the cot. He killed this bug, and thinking that it was merely a
coincidence that it should have so accurately alighted upon the cot, he moved
the latter another foot away from the side of the wall and resumed his
position upon it. After a while he observed another bug crawling up the wall,
having come from the baseboard. He watched it carefully and noticed that this
bug did the same as the other, only that it went up the wall about two feet
higher than the first one, and then, with the same kind of a jump as the
former bug made, leaped from the wall and fell upon the cot. Mr. Wright
continued this experiment, moving his cot gradually away from the wall each
time until it was in the middle of the room, or about ten feet from the wall.
On this last occasion one of the bugs crawled up the wall until it got nearly
to the ceiling, then gave a jump, floating out like a flying squirrel or
airplane, and landed upon the cot precisely as did the first bug. This would
seem to indicate that bedbugs possess almost human intelligence.
The power of migration of
bedbugs is wonderful. I have made experiments at the Old City Hospital
(replaced now by the R. B. Green Memorial Hospital) and have positively
demonstrated that they will travel the full length of a large ward, and go
from bed to bed when these are occupied. I demonstrated this by catching a few
bugs and making a tiny mark on each of their backs with an adhesive mixture of
balsam fir and flake white, thus marking them distinctly. I then placed them
in an unoccupied cot at one end of the ward in the evening, and the next
morning discovered them in an occupied cot at the other end of the ward.
Nothing gives the
sleeping-car companies more concern than this noxious insect. Here in San
Antonio, when a car is being supplied with clean linen, and the used linen is
found to be blood-stained, the telltale "buggy" odor leads to an immediate war
against bedbugs, and the car is marked for another crusade in seven days, the
officials knowing that another crop of bugs can be depended upon within that
time. Churches--particularly those of the colored folks-- schools, second hand
goods, and the family laundry, when it is given out and into the hands of an
untidy washer woman, are the principal avenues of dissemination. A civil
engineer in the employ of a railway company was sent to straighten out a large
elbow in the railroad, and there being in the vicinity of his work an
abandoned section house, he used it as a camping place. One night he awakened
by a burning sensation all over his body; and, upon striking a match, he found
that his pallet was alive with bedbugs. The weather being very warm, he had
placed it in the middle of the room, between the front and the back doors. He
picked up his pallet, consisting of quilts and blankets, and gave them a
thorough beating upon the front gallery. He then replaced it in the same
location, but resorted to the larder for protection in the form of a gallon of
thick molasses. He made a circle with this around his pallet and went to bed
again, with the knowledge, as he thought, that he had defeated the bedbugs. In
two or three hours, however, he was awakened by the same burning sensation as
before, and upon examination with a light found the bugs dropping right down
from the ceiling upon his bedding.
The present or past
occupancy of this loathsome insect is easily detected by the stain which its
fecal matter leaves on the bed slats, which stain does not appear as a round
speck, like that of a fly, but runs along the softer fibres of the wood, in
obedience to the chemical affinity between the iron in the fecal matter and
the tannic and gallic acids of the lumber. The study of the bacterial flora of
the bedbug is both varied and interesting, and, I believe, is destined to open
up unknown avenues for bacterial study of blood, as the work I have done in
this direction warrants the opinion that the bedbug will furnish a large field
for very interesting and profitable research.
Some years after writing
the above "Observations on Bedbugs," which was prepared in 1903, my attention
was directed by Mexican farmers living in the vicinity of San Antonio to
another blood-sucking insect, which seems to be, in its habit, both nocturnal
and diurnal. I was informed by these Mexicans that, in numerous instances,
after being bitten by one of these insects at night, the next day a decided
malaise was experienced, and this persisted for three or four days, some of
those bitten expressing their feelings as a "soreness of the joints." Now,
this insect's abdominal cavity will hold from three to four drops of blood,
and it is hardly believable that it is the mechanical puncture by the
proboscis alone that produced the symptoms mentioned. This insect is called by
the Mexicans "Chinche Volante," meaning flying chinch or flying bedbug. The
English name is blood-sucking conenose (Conorrhinus sanguisuga). Almost every
Mexican farmhouse has a brush arbor over the front door to afford shade, and
it is under these arbors that the Mexicans sleep in the summer, on account of
its being too hot in the house. They are then better exposed to the bites of
these insects, and wire screening seems to be of no avail in protecting these
people from them, as they crawl under the screened door. I have caught a
number of them in my own home and screened sleeping room. In some instances
they become so engorged that if the sleeper happens to roll over on them and
crushes them, a very large blood spot is visible and plainly tells of their
presence. In this climate I have found what I believe to be two varieties of
this insect. The small squares on the margin of the abdomen in one variety are
distinctly black, and in the other variety they are yellow.
I have had one of these
insects photographed and a number of copies made for distribution among you,
so that you will become acquainted with what may prove to be another source of
variola in Texas. It was not my purpose to present this insect to you at this
time, and I would not have done so, had it not been for a very fortunate
observation I made during one of my pilgrimages in quest of information on the
habits of bats.
In looking one day for bats
in an old adobe house, on which time had laid a heavy hand -- the doors,
windows, and roof being nearly gone -- I found one of these insects depleting
a bedbug. Upon inquiring in the neighborhood for the owner of this house, I
learned that it had been vacant for more than twenty-five years, and that it
had been built about fifty years ago. Now, bedbugs will continue to inhabit
houses for some years after they are vacant, but not for such a great length
of time as this one had been empty, not in such a state of decay as this one
was in. Such being true, you can readily see the connection which could be
established between this insect and a "spontaneous case of variola" where
there was no possible contact with the disease, as the chinche volante can and
will fly long distances.
"Chinche volante" or
flying bedbug.
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