The Body-Louse. (magnified) spend their whole time or a large part of it, in an uncleanly environment. But though lice flourish best in dirty surroundings it must be understood that they do not arise from dirt as the uninformed, who still believe in spontaneous generation, think. No creature exists that is not the result of the union of a male with a female and every existent louse was hatched from an egg laid by a mother-louse and fertilised by a "daddylouse." It might be well to mention here that lice have no metamorphoses: that is to say they have no caterpillar and chrysalis stage like the butterflies.

The structure of the mouth-parts of the Anoplura have interested the earliest entomologists and Swammerdam, Linnaeus Schiodte, Redo, and others have all given lengthy dissertations on the louse. But there was considerable difference of opinion among these authorities regarding the structure of these organs and even to-day the structure sucking-tube is not clearly understood. In his book on Medical Entomology Col. Alcock gives a good short account of the mouth parts which I quote here. He writes :-"All that can be seen of the mouth-parts outwardly is a short and incomplete tube with

some dorsally placed recurved teeth : the function of this tube with its denticles is to hold the skin when the insect starts to suck. The rest of the mouth-parts are retracted within the head, in somewhat the same way as, only more completely than, those of the Hippoboscid flies they have the form of a slender tube composed of the three very fine stylets, two of which lying dorsally are perhaps the mandibles, while the third which is ventral in position perhaps represents the two maxillae fused together except at their tip; in repose this tube lies invaginated in a sheath beneath the pharynx; in action it is far extruded, through the short outwardly-visible tube, for the purpose of piercing the skin and drawing blood. The most reasonable view to take of these ensheathed mouthparts is that they are closely homolo gous with those of bugs, but are protec tively intussuscepted when at rest."

The male-body louse is a tiny creature about 3 mm. long and 1 mm. broad, while its "better half" is somewhat larger. It varies in colour considerably: Andrew Murray states that those found on West African and Australian natives are almost black; on the Hindu dark and smoky on Africanders and Hottentots orange; on the South American Indians dark-brown on the Mongolian races yellowish-brown; and on the Esquimos light-brown, which comes nearest to the light dirty-grey colour of the parasites found on Europeans.

Mr. C. Warburton of Cambridge has recently succeeded in rearing P. vestimenti and P. capitis in captivity in the Quick laboratory of the University but only after a series of experiments had failed. One of the conditions of success was the close proximity of the human body, and the anchorage of the pests in some sort of cloth such as flannel. Sir Arthur Shipley of Christ College, Cambridge, writes that :-"He ( Warburton) anchored his specimens on small pieces of cloth which he interned in small test tubes plugged with cotton wool, which did not let the lice out, but did let air and the emanations of the human body in. For

fear of breakage the glass tube was enclosed in an outer metal tube and the whole was kept both day and night near the body. Two meals a day were necessary to keep the lice alive. When feeding, the pieces of cloth, which the lice would never let go of, were placed on the back of the hand, hence the danger of escape was practically nil, and once given access to the skin the lice fed immediately and greedily."

Warburton found that a single impieg nated female of P. vestimenti produced 125 eggs in the course of 25 days. The young which are tiny miniatures of the adult, feed immediately after emerging from the egg. They moult about three times, generally attaining maturity on the 4th day, but they do not perform their sexual functions till about four days later.

It is needless here to follow Mr. Warburton's experiments in detail. He summarises the life-cycle of the insects as shown by his experiments as follows:Incubation period: Eight days to five weeks. From larva to imago: eleven days. Non-functional mature condition: four days. Period of adult life : male, three weeks;

female, four weeks.

It should be remembered that these figures are only the result of laboratory experiments, and that in natural conditions the life-cycle may occupy a longer or shorter time, and that climate influences it considerably.

Mr. Warburton's work makes it clear that unless regularly fed body-lice perish very quickly and that the young can only live 36 hours at the utmost without food. It might be of interest to mention that he found at the commencement of his experiments that the body-louse is capable of living longer under adverse conditions than P. capitis.

The head louse is a somewhat smaller creature than the body louse, the female being about 1.8 mm. long and 0.7 mm. broad. They are generally of a cindery grey colour, but like the body louse, vary considerably. They are usually found on the heads of uncleanly people; and school children-especially girls-in India very

Lransverse section of Snout of Louse.
(After Alcock )

frequently have "nits" in their hair, mainly owing to the motley crowd that attend even our best seats of learning.' The habit of several natives such as the Australians, the Andamanese, and the Apache Indians of plastering their hair with coloured clay, is said to be a protection against vermin and also to keep them "agreeably cool". Anointing the head with ointments or oil, is also a protective measure, and it is probable that the Spartan youths who used to oil their wavy locks before going into battle, feared these parasites. The habit of the natives of India of anointing themselves daily with oil serves a more useful purpose than they perhaps think. Likewise, the round head of the German soldier is not shaved to provide the cartoonist with a subject, but has a practical significance, as it affords no nidus for lice. The wigs of the seventh, and early part of the eighteenth centuries, and the later powdering of the hair also probably owed their origin to the difficulty of combating the parasites, and not to the whims of Dame Fashion.

The egg of P. capitis is something like that of the bed-bug, but has a perforated cap, which Col. Alcock thinks is to supply the devolping embryos with air. It is attached to the hair, and at the end of six days the young emerge, mating after a certain number of moults, on the 18th day.

The crab louse, Ph. pubis, is, like the dethroned Emperor Wilhelm among rulers, a creature quite unlike the other lice. It is nearly as wide as long: the legs are

Eggs of Head-Louse.

proportionately very stout (the front pair are much slenderer than the others) and always spread out laterally which has the effect of making the body look even broader than it is. It is more or less whitish in colour with a dark patch on each shoulder and the legs are tinged with a red. Its popular name, "the crab louse," is more appropriate than popular names of insects usally are, as a glance at the illustration will show. It inhabits the pubic and perineal hairs particularly, but is not entirely confined to those regions and has even been found on the head. The eggs are pear-shaped. Young emerge in about a week and are quite mature in a little over a fortnight.

Numerous remedies have been suggested for combating lice, which I do not propose to detail here. "Prevention is better than cure" and acting on this principle we should try to avoid contact with "lousy" people and advice the and advice the children to do the same. It should also be remembered that to secure immunity from their attacks the chief requisite is cleanliness. The gentle sex generally dislike the idea of washing their heads frequently, on account of the time it occupies and its troublesomeness, and children share a similar antipathy. But frequent head-washing is essential, and parents should see that their children are regularly and thoroughly bathed. The use of oils on the hair, as I have remarked previously, is a useful preventive. This has been known for centuries and in former times some horrible mixtures were probably in use. Mouffet, for instance, would have his readers use a

compound of hog's blood mixed with wine and essence of roses.

For curative purposes a wash made from an extract of tobacco is efficacious, but not agreeable. Perhaps the best method of ridding the head of P. capitis is to rub the hair thoroughly with equal parts of paraffin and salad oils, followed by washing with soap-preferably carbolic soap-and hot water and combing with the small, fine wooden combs that can be had for a few pice in any Indian bazar. Sulphur ointment is also commonly used for destroying the head-louse.

This

P. vestimenti the more annoying of the two Pediculi and also the more difficult to destroy as it lays its eggs in the seams and folds of one's inner garments. Lousy clothing should be steamed or boiled or cleaned by soaking in gasoline or some other volatile mineral oil. will never be necessary, I think, in the average home, if the clothes are frequently dusted, sunned, and ironed particularly along the seams. It seems the custom among poorer Eurasean families to regularly have their hair searched for "nits" and to examine their clothes for body-lice, this custom no doubt considerably mitigates the evil. As a private once said to Sir Arthur Shipley: "We strips and we picks 'em off and place 'em in the sun, and it kind o' breaks the little beggars' 'earts."

The body-louse, and even the headlouse, are known to be carriers of relapsing fever and it has been "shown that infected lice transmit the infection if their bodies are crushed and rubbed into an abraded skin, as might happen in the rubbings and scratchings of a lousy person." For this reason infected persons should try to avoid scratching the irriated parts. Considerable relief may be obtained by bathing with warm water and carbolic soap, or any good medicated soap such as "Cuticura"; and I have been told that a dash of Phenyle in the water increases the soothing effect.

The body-louse also stands convicted of conveying typhus, and the head-louse is suspected of carrying not only typhus but also beri-beri.

The crab-louse is more easily conveyed from one person to another than either of the two Pediculi and as they are usually contracted from using an infested public lavatory or bath, such places should as far as possible be avoided. I do not

suppose even our energetic "city-fathers" could make all the public latrines strictly sanitary. But they are a wonderful body (witness the new electric rubbish cart) and who knows what may happen in the future!

This is the most troublesome of all lice and also the most difficult to get rid of as it reproduces very rapidly. Shaving of the

T is well known to students of History that some fifty years ago the Negroes in America were in the bonds of slavery. From the middle of the seventeenth century the Portuguese began to capture the Negroes of Africa and sell them as slaves. By and by the trade fell into the hands of the English, and thousands of these poor creatures were imported into America. They were readily purchased by the white settlers, who urgently wanted some labour ageney to clear the virgin forests and bring the vast land under cultivation. In 1776 America declared her Independence, and the equality of man before God was recognised.

But the condition of the Negro grew from bad to worse. He was not treated as a human being, he could not own any estate, he was regarded as cattle by his master. The horrors of this system are graphically described in Mrs. Stow's famous novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which is also responsible for awakening the sympathy of the people for the coloured man. From the very beginning the Northern States of America were against slavery. The States in the South-where the Negro slaves were owned by the planters in large numbers-were strongly in favour of continuing this system. This and the other points of difference between these two groups of States led to the fierce Civil War in 1860. The cause of the helpless Negro was stoutly championed by Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest Presidents of America, with whom the principle was, "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." The cause of the

weak and the humble was successful, and on the 1st January, 1863, the famous Lincoln Amnesty declared complete freedom to all the American Negroes.

Though the chains of bondage were broken, this did not much improve the material condition of the coloured people. Hitherto they were in a primitive condition, and had scarcely any knowledge of earning their livelihood. Till then their masters were responsible for their maintenance. But now they were thrown out in the open and broad world, where there was a hard and keen struggle for existence. Some kind of literary, spiritual and industrial education was necessary to meet this situation. An attempt in the direction was successfully made by General Armstrong and Booker T. Washington by starting the required schools at Hampton and Tuskegee respectively. It is the life of the latter that is chosen for our study

here.

Our hero was born a slave in 1858 in a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia, near a Post Office called Hale's Ford. His life 'had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.' He was born in a typical log cabin about fourteen by sixteen feet square. Here he lived with his mother and family 'till after the Civil War, when they were all declared free.' As soon as freedom was proclaimed, the family went to Malden, Kanawha Valley, in West Virginia, to live with his step-father. At that time salt mining was the great industry in that part of

West Virginia. Washington's father had already engaged himself at a Salt-furnace, and he had also secured work in the same for his step-son.

From his very childhood he had a great desire to learn to read, and understand common books and newspapers. Soon after they had settled in the new home, he asked his mother for a book. She procured for him an old copy of Webster's Blue Back spelling book. This was the first book he read. After some time a school was opened in the neighbourhood, and arrangement was made with the teacher to give him some lessons at night, when the day's work was over. He could learn more at night than the other children could do during the day. His experience gave him faith in the institution of a night school, with which afterwards he had to work at Hampton and Tuskegee.

After he had worked for some days in the Salt-furnace, he was engaged in a coal-mine. This work was not only hard, but dangerous. "There was always the danger of being blown to pieces by a premature explosion of powder, or of being crushed by falling slate"; and frequent accidents from these causes kept him in constant danger. It was while working here that he heard of the establishment of a Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton. He immediately resolved to go there, though he had no idea of its precise whereabouts, and he had also no means to reach the place. This thought, however, was uppermost in his mind day and night.

Soon afterwards he heard of a vacancy in the house of General Ruffener. Mrs. Ruffener was very strict with her servants, and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. He had, however, decided not to remain in the coal-mine, and so through his mother he secured the place in Mrs. Ruffener's house. Soon he learned that she required everything to be kept clean, that she wanted prompt execution of work, and that she desired absolute honesty and straightforward character. The lessons he learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffener were as valuable to him as any education he ever received since then. His heart and honest work soon pleased his mistress, who always sympathised with him in all his efforts to get an education.

In 1872 he determined to make an effort to go to Hampton. He had no money to buy clothes or pay his travelling expenses. He had on the other hand the sympathy of the coloured people. who took a keen interest in the matter. The great day at last came, and he started on his pilgrimage! His mother was then not keeping good health, he hardly expected to see her again, and hence his departure was all the from sad. The distance Molden to Hampton was about five hundred miles. He had not sufficient money to pay his fare. "By walking, begging rides both in waggons and in the cars, in some way, after a number of days"

more

he reached the city of Richmond late at night. He was tired, he was very hungry, but he was not disheartened. He arrived at a street where the "board side-walk was considerably elevated." He crept under it, and rested for the night upon the ground with his satchel of clothing for a pillow. In the morning he noticed he was near a large ship, which seemed to be unloading its cargo. Here he secured his work, and in this way earned money to pay his way. He reached at last the place of his pilgrimage with fifty cents to offer at the feet of the Goddess of Learning.

He immediately presented himself before the head teacher for admission. Having been so long without food and change of clothing, he could not make a favourable impression upon her. She perhaps thought that he was a loafer or tramp. After some hours had passed, she said: "The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take a broom and sweep it." Here was his chance! He instantly took the broom and swept the room three times. When every corner in the room was thoroughly cleaned, he informed the teacher of it. She, however, knew just where to look for the dust. She took out her handkerchief and rubbed it on the wood work, about the wall, and over the furniture. When she was unable to find a particle of dust she quietly remarked, "I guess you will do to enter this institution." Miss. F. Mackie, the head teacher, was thus favourably impressed, and she offered him a position as janitor. This he gladly accepted, as it enabled him to pay his board. At Hampton he came in direct contact with that great man, General Samuel C. Armstrong, the founder of the Hampton Institution. For three years he worked very hard, and was graduated in 1875.

After graduation he returned to his home at Malden and was elected to teach the coloured school of that place. Two years after he went to Washington D. C. and he studied there for eight months. About 1878 he was called to Hampton by General Armstrong to deliver the post-graduate address at the next commencement. This he considered to be a great honour and spoke on "The Force That Wins". In 1879 he was again called to Hampton as a teacher, where he further pursued some supplementary studies. General Armstrong was then carrying on an educational experiment with Red Indians; and seventy-five young men of them were placed under Washington's care for training, he being appointed as their 'house-father'. He creditably acquitted himself of this rather delicate, dangerous and difficult task. He also started a night school in connection with the Institute in which students were to receive education on condition that they were to work ten hours during the day. This class was called by him "The Plucky Class" on account of the earnestness the students showed in their hard work and in their studies.