Handbook of Medical EntomologyRiley, William A. (William Albert)
Science
Handbook of Medical Entomology
Riley, William A. (William Albert)
Insect pests; Insects as carriers of disease; Medical parasitology
Sources of infestation are various. School children may obtain the lice
from seatmates, by wearing the hats or caps of infested mates, or by the
use, in common, of brushes and combs. They may be obtained from infested
beds or sleeper berths. Stiles reports an instance in which a large
number of girls in a fashionable boarding school developed lousiness a
short time after traveling in a sleeping car.
Treatment is simple, for the parasites may readily be controlled by
cleanliness and washing the head with a two per cent solution of
carbolic acid or even kerosene. The latter is better used mixed with
equal parts of olive oil, to avoid irritation. The treatment should be
applied at night and followed the next morning by a shampoo with soap
and warm water. It is necessary to repeat the operation in a few days.
Xylol, used pure, or with the addition of five per cent of vaseline, is
also very efficacious. Of course, the patient must be cautioned to stay
away from a lighted lamp or fire while using either the kerosene or
xylol. While these treatments will kill the eggs or nits, they will not
remove them from the hairs. Pusey recommends repeated washings with
vinegar or 25 per cent of acetic acid in water, for the purpose of
loosening and removing the nits.
Treatment of severe infestations in females is often troublesome on
account of long hair. For such cases the following method recommended by
Whitfield (1912) is especially applicable:
The patient is laid on her back on the bed with her head over the edge,
and beneath the head is placed a basin on a chair so that the hair lies
in the basin. A solution of 1 in 40 carbolic acid is then poured over
the hair into the basin and sluiced backwards and forwards until the
whole of the hair is thoroughly soaked with it. It is especially
necessary that care should be taken to secure thorough saturation of the
hair over the ears and at the nape of the neck, since these parts are
not only the sites of predilection of the parasites but they are apt to
escape the solution. This sluicing is carried out for ten minutes by the
clock. At the end of ten minutes the hair is lifted from the basin and
allowed to drain, but is not dried or even thoroughly wrung out. The
whole head is then swathed with a thick towel or better, a large piece
of common house flannel, which is fastened up to form a sort of turban,
and is allowed to remain thus for an hour. It can then be washed or
simply allowed to dry, as the carbolic quickly disperses. At the end of
this period every pediculus and what is better, every ovum is dead and
no relapse will occur unless there is exposure to fresh contagion.
Whitfield states that there seem to be no disadvantages in this method,
which he has used for years. He has never seen carboluria result from
it, but would advise first cutting the hair of children under five years
of age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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