Cimex Lectularius

] G M m LJXX^UX-J h«MM»« I 1 ra KJSU]* D iDtmeac Œecût/a/Ut€& by Richard Relham During my seminary days I spent two summers in the non-industrialized Appalachians as an assistant to Mr. Johns, pastor of seven small churches. One aspect of his ministry during the summer months was conducting Bible schools and revivals in a tent which was moved from one preaching point to another. The personnel for these events—preachers and teachers (often college girls)—were usually imported from the small cities of the Piedmont. I recall an incident in one of these communities when one of the young ladies—let us call her Audrey—and I were assigned to stay in the home of an elderly widow, Mrs. Buntyn Brown, who lived alone and had two spare rooms for guests, an accommodation not too many homes afforded. She was a fine lady and owned a pretty white cottage on a green knoll back from the road. Mr. Johns thought he was assigning us a choice accommodation, which indeed he was except for one thing. Audrey, my fellow guest, was from a refined and cultivated home and had rather delicate sensibilities. At breakfast after spending our first night as guest, I noticed she had dark circles under her eyes like a celebrant recovering from a New Year's eve party. I felt sure she hadn't slept well but attributed it to her being in a strange place when it dawned on me there might be another cause for her sleepless51 ness. I had had some visitors during the night, but they had been few in number and their visit of short duration and, being accustomed to much worse, I hardly noticed the incident, but as I looked at my fellow guest I wondered if her visitors had been more numerous or if she were merely more susceptible to their attentions. Before Bible school began that morning Audrey whispered that she needed to talk to me, so we moved off a few yards from the others for a private confab. She was greatly agitated and had probably chosen me as confidante because I was nearer her own age and being a fellow guest in the home she felt I would understand the situation. She began by asking me if I had been bitten during the night. I assured her 1 had and added that it was not an uncommon occurrence in these parts. "I'm terribly embarrassed," she moaned, "but I can't spend another night at that house. I don't want to offend our hostess and I can't bear the thought of approaching Mr. Johns who is so sweet and kind about everything, but if something can't be done I'll have to feign illness and go home, yet I don't want to do that." "Don't worry about it," I replied. "I'll talk to the pastor and we'll work out something." "O would you! she exclaimed. "I'll be terribly grateful." Her relief was visible and I'm sure she did a better job of teaching the children that morning with this load off her mind. That small reddish-brown obscenity Cimex Lectularius is rarely heard of in this day of modern insecticides, but in former times they were common and unwelcome guests in many homes. Hiding during daylight hours in cracks and crannies of the house walls or in crevices of the bedstead they came forth at night to harry the luckless sleeper. Even a vacant house could harbor Cimex Lectularius because they have been known to live for a year without food. An infestation was difficult to deal with. The victim of an infestation would sometimes take all the beds outside and expose them to bright sunlight and go over every crevice in the bed frame and every seam in the mattress with a cotton swab dipped in kerosene. When the bed was returned to the house the legs were sometimes placed in cans of water or kerosene to keep the insects hiding in the walls from re-infesting the bed. It made for a smelly sleeping atmosphere but to some people it...