Announcement

**Old Reb** · 08-09-2010, 05:14 PM

Re: Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Soak a couple rags in turpentine and tie them around your ankles just above your socks.
Source: My grandfather.

**Vuhginyuh** · 08-09-2010, 05:30 PM

This stirred up a little hornets nest before, but its worth reposting

Here's a Period Skin Salve, Fungicide, Insect Repellent & Leather Dressing all in one neat little batch. I found the recipe in the 1858 United States Dispensatory. It reads as such;

8 oz LARD, or tallow
1.5 oz OIL of JUNIPERUS VIRGINIANA, cedar oil
.5 oz CERA FLAVA, yellow bee's wax

Heat until parts mix well, cool, apply. Store covered.

This mixture was used on burns, blisters, insect bites and as a bug repellent.

I find it amusing that these parts measure about the same as a recipe for leather dressing.

Cedar oil was used alone as an fungicide and pesticide, external application, or mixed 1 part oil to twenty parts water as an ''oral diuretic''.* Enjoy!

U.S. Despensatory, p449, 11th Edition
Drs. Wood & Bache
J. P. Lippincort and Co.
Philledelphia
1858

*I'm not a licensed medical anything, I just own the book. Try at your own risk...

***Shockoe Hill Cats*** · 08-12-2010, 10:29 AM

Re: This stirred up a little hornets nest before, but its worth reposting

Henry Woodhead, ed., Voices of the Civil War: Soldier Life (Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2007), 82-83.

"Skirmishing for graybacks" became a well-known army ritual, with dozens or even hundreds of semiclad soldiers pinching the lice between thumb and forefinger as they sat cross-legged on the ground. Maine officer Abner Small noted that "a graduate from Harvard and an illiterate from the wilds of Maine were often seen affectionately picking lice together."

Some men chose to boil their clothes periodically but invariably became reinfested soon after. William Fletcher of the 5th Texas found that by holding his clothing over a campfire it was possible to smoke the lice out. "If one was stocked with big fat fellows," he noted, "it would remind him of popping corn."

In addition to the ubiquitous graybacks, Sergeant Major Elbridge Copp of the 3d New Hampshire enumerated a variety of other insect pests, including chiggers, wood ticks, and sand fleas, concluding, "There were many things the soldiers suffered from besides the enemy bullets."

Indiana lieutenant John Hadley thought the swarms of mosquitoes along Virginia's Rappahannock River rivaled even the greybacks, writing, "I never came in contact with such gigantic cannibals, such mammoth blood suckers, such unprincipled gluttons."

***Shockoe Hill Cats*** · 08-12-2010, 10:45 AM

Re: Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Ibid., 92-94.

PRIVATE RANDOLPH A. SHOTWELL
8th Virginia Infantry

"'Better be keerful of them ere lice!' In explanation it will only be necessary to state that the rush huts, or 'shelters'... had been occupied for months by all kinds of men, including of course, many dirty, slovenly fellows, careless of cleanliness, and dropping vermin everywhere they went, to say nothing of where they stretched their dirty blankets.

Hence these outpost bivouacs became literally swarming with the hateful insects, and even the greatest care seem inadequate to prevent their getting a lodgment somewhere in one's clothes or blankets. And once 'entrenched' in the seam of a garment, there is no dislodging them as even two hours boiling in hot water merely makes them more vigorous and lively.

...I could not conquer my intense abhorrence of the pestiferous pests--the "Greybacks." And when upon the long march, with no chance to either obtain a change of underclothing, or wash those I wore, the mortification of knowing the vile vermin were 'in possession' and multiplying ten times faster than they could be destroyed, was so great as to make me perfectly miserable; so much so that I could think of nothing else."

PRIVATE JOHN D. BILLINGS
10th Battery, Massachusetts Light Artillery

The feeling of intense disgust aroused by the first contact with these creepers soon gave away to hardened indifference, as a soldier realized the utter impossibility of keeping free of them, and the privacy with which he carried on his first 'skirmishing,' as this 'search for happiness' came to be called, was soon abandoned, and the warfare carried on more openly.

**aeryn406** · 08-16-2010, 10:53 AM

Re: Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

My first thought was witch-hazel. That stuff's good for just about anything, as long as you can get past the sting when it first goes on.

**Michael Comer** · 08-16-2010, 01:57 PM

Re: Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Let us please keep the thread on track. The question deals with documented period ways to handle these little creatures and not what folks have heard, assumed or experienced in modern times.

**ElizabethClark** · 08-16-2010, 05:19 PM

Re: Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Sherri, could you share where you found that mentioned in primary or secondary sources? I know Mr Tackitt is looking for things he can track down and cite.

**Silas** · 08-16-2010, 06:14 PM

1861-1865 : the dark ages of chigger remedies

In my online search of remedies, I came across these : tobacco juice, resin from certain flowers, grease, and alcohol (of the rubbing variety). Witch hazel was never mentioned.

I performed several hours of research in google books. My primary time frame was 1850-1865, but I opened it up to 1850-1890 when the research got too thin. Basically, they didn't know what chiggers were. It was believed that it burrowed into the feet of negroes and other barefooted persons. The shoes and stockings of enlightened Europeans were a preferred preventative to harboring this pest.

Here is some of what I found :

The Berkshire Medical Journal (1861) has a fairly good report on the jigger or chigoe as it was known in that day. See,
http://books.google.com/books?id=8ti...Chigoe&f=false beginning at 272.

Another example is Elements of Medical Zoology (1861)
http://books.google.com/books?id=vqe...Chigoe&f=false beginning at page 300.

Elements is an interesting read, but it does not help much in the quest for what soldiers may have done in the field.

An Account of the Cruise of the St. George on the North American and West Indian Station (1861) beginning at p. 107 is fairly typical of what was known about chiggers, jiggers and chigoes at the time :

Jiggers - I have not I believe hitherto mentioned this annoying little insect. But as it is one whose acquaintance is frequently made in these regions, the following description of it may interest my readers.

May 24th. About this time the Chigoe or Jigger Pulex penetrans is numerous and very annoying. These parasitic fleas may be seen hopping about amongst the dust of sheds and similar places and the naked feet of the negroes suffer constantly from their attacks. But even the stockings and shoes of Europeans are not proof against the insidious attacks of this tiny flea. On several occasions I have found them ensconced in my feet ; to-day I found that one had chosen the bend of my little toe as the scene of its domestic economy. The negroes from mutual practice on each other are quick at discovering and skilful in extracting them, and accordingly to one of my servant lads I entrusted the operation. Taking my foot on his knee he began with a sharp needle to open and widen the minute orifice in the epidermis between which and the cutis the swollen body of the pregnant female had taken its place. Slowly and cautiously the lad exposed the depredator giving no pain and not

drawing the least drop of blood until at length he removed the insect uninjured. The great danger to be guarded against is the rupture of the delicate skin of the jigger's abdomen stretched and attenuated as it is by the great increase of its contents. If this should occur the nitts would escape into the wound and produce a dreadful ulcer ; such, however, is the skill of the sable practitioners that it very rarely occurs. The negroes talk of two kinds the white and the poison jigger. Mine was of the latter kind and therefore a little grease was rubbed into the cavity after the operation. The presence of a jigger beneath the skin during the powers of increase is commonly described as a titillation rather pleasing than painful. This does not at all agree wtih my experience. I, on no occasion, felt any itching, but as soon as I became conscious of any sensation at all of a dull pain with tension somewhat like the rising of a small boil which increased until the cause was removed by extraction.

I forgot to cut and paste the citation, but a google search could find the above is someone really wanted to find it. (There's not much more to note from this source.)

An Index of Diseases: Their Symptoms and Treatment (1882)
http://books.google.com/books?id=es1...page&q&f=false stated the below :

EPIZOA From 'epi' upon and 'zoa' an animal. Synon. Ecto-parasites. Animal parasites which live upon or in the structure of the skin. The epizoa living on the skin are 1) The Louse or Pediciulus, 2) Common Flea or Pulex irritans, 3) Chigoe or Jigger found in Guiana and Brazil, 4) Ticks or Ixodes which particularly attach themselves to oxen, sheep, dogs, wolves, and occasionally to the human body, 5) Aryades which are allied to the ticks and are met with in parts of Persia, 6) Common Bed Dug or Acanthia lectularia, and 7) the Harvest Bug or Leptus autumnalis. See Phthiriasis.

PHTHIRIASIS From ----, a louse. Synon Morbus Pedicularis ; Lousiness. - Human body may be infested with three kinds of lice : Pediculus corporis vel vestimentorum ; Pediculus capitis or head louse and Pediculus pubis or crab louse. Prurigo senilis very frequently due to the pediculus vestimentorum. All are oviparous, the eggs being known as nits : sexes distinct : young are hatched in five or six days and in eighteen days are capable of reproduction.

TREATMENT. Free washing with yellow or soft soap and hot water. Sulphur bath, 125. Mercurial vapor bath, 131. Mercurial ointment. Dusting with calomel. Corrosive sublimate lotion (gr. 2 to fl. oz. j). Sulphur, Stavesacre or Coccnlus ointment. Infusion of tobacco. Nits to be combed away after washing the hairs with vinegar or spirits of wine. Underclothing to be boiled, not simply washed, other clothes to be ironed with hot flat iron.

Despite the title, Index didn't note any treatment for chiggers.

The River Congo, from its Mouth to B�l�bo (1884)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Z1x...Chigoe&f=false at pages 336-37 repeated some of the same old advice :

If removed soon after discovery, it occasions comparatively little inconvenience but should you delay the eggs will hatch and a multitude of little fleas will honeycomb your flesh. Neglect may cause the whole foot to rot away and mortify. The jigger is best removed by a sharply pointed piece of wood and care must be taken in so doing not to break the egg sack lest the eggs escape into the wound and hatching there cause it to fester.

It's all interesting advice, but for all the good it did, the advice might have included cupping and bleeding. It was all wrong. I am now going to quote an article from a modern website which discusses the chigger, how it feeds, myths and treatment. I include it, not for the modern advice, but to show how backwards we were a hundred fifty years ago about chiggers. The below source is the Missouri Department of Conservation. http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/av...pests/chiggers It makes the period science about chiggers seem downright foolish.

The worst thing about the Missouri summer isn't sunburn, heat or humidity-it's chiggers.

Chiggers first show up as annoying red bumps. An itch begins. It grows. More hard red welts surface. From your feet and ankles upward, and especially at those tender locations your mother told not to scratch in public, a maddening itch takes hold.

Savage scratching begins. Every welt becomes a persistent, exquisitely itching preoccupation that continues to irritate for days and even weeks. You probably recognize these symptoms of chigger bites. Yet we never see the culprits responsible for this summertime agony. What are chiggers? Why do they bite us? How can we stop that horrible itching?

Myths about chiggers are widespread. Many believe chiggers are some type of bug. Folklore tells us they burrow under our skin and die, that they drink our blood and that they can best be killed by suffocation with nail polish or bathing with bleach, alcohol, turpentine or salt water. Surprisingly, all these popular facts are just plain wrong.

Chiggers are not bugs or any other type of insect. Chiggers are the juvenile (or larval) form of a specific family of mites, the Trombiculidae. Mites are arachnids, like spiders and scorpions, and are closely related to ticks.

Chigger mites are unique among the many mite families in that only the larval stage feeds on vertebrate animals; chiggers dine on us only in their childhood, and later become vegetarians that live on the soil.

Chiggers are tiny-less than 1/150th of an inch in diameter. More than a thousand of them could line up across this page and still leave room for two or three hundred more. At this size, chiggers are almost invisible to the unaided eye. However, when several chiggers cluster together near an elastic waistband or wrist watch they can be seen because of their bright red color.

Chiggers are born red; they do not become red from feeding on blood as some believe. An engorged, well-fed chigger changes to a yellow color.

Under the microscope, you can see that the chigger is an ugly little creature (if it was larger, it could star in any science fiction movie). Although adult chigger mites have eight legs, the troublesome young chiggers has only six.

One of the greatest misconceptions about chiggers is that they burrow into our skin and eventually die within the tissues, thus causing the persistent itch. This widespread myth has its origin in the southern states where pests with similar names such as jigger flea or the chigoe do attack by burrowing under skin. Chiggers are not equipped to burrow, and they are much too large to enter through the pores.

If chiggers do not burrow under skin or drink blood, what are they doing that itches so much? Chiggers do bite us, much like ticks do. Chiggers attach by inserting minute specialized mouth parts into skin depressions, usually at skin pores or hair follicles.

The chigger's piercing mouth parts are short and delicate, and can penetrate only thin skin or where the skin wrinkles and folds.

That's why most chigger bites are around the ankles, the back of the knees, about the crotch, under the belt line and in the armpits. The insertion of the mouth parts is not perceptible. The bite alone is not the source of the itch.

The reason the bite itches so intensely and for such a long time is because the chigger injects saliva into its victim after attaching to the skin. This saliva contains a powerful digestive enzyme that literally dissolves the skin cells it contacts. It is this liquefied tissue, never blood, that the chigger ingests and uses for food.

A chigger usually goes unnoticed for one to three hours after it starts feeding. During this period the chigger quietly injects its digestive saliva. After a few hours your skin reacts by hardening the cells on all sides of the saliva path, eventually forming a hard tube-like structure called a stylostome.

The stylostome walls off the corrosive saliva, but it also functions like a feeding tube for the hungry chigger. The chigger sits with its mouthparts attached to the stylostome, and like a person drinking a milk shake through a straw, it sucks up your liquefied tissue. Left undisturbed, the chigger continues alternately injecting saliva into the bite and sucking up liquid tissue.

It is the stylostome that irritates and inflames the surrounding tissue and causes the characteristic red welt and intense itch. The longer the chigger feeds, the deeper the stylostome grows, and the larger the welt will eventually become. The idea that the welt swells and eventually engulfs the feeding chiggers is also a myth. Many people have seen a small red dot inside a welt (usually under a water blister), but this is the stylostome tube and not a chigger body.

The time required for a chigger to complete its meal varies with the location of the bite, the host and the species. If undisturbed, chiggers commonly take three or four days, and sometimes longer, to eat their dinner. This is not surprising when you consider that this is the first and last meal of the young chigger's life.

On human hosts, however, chiggers seldom get the chance to finish a meal. The unlucky chigger that depends on a human for its once-in-a-lifetime dinner is almost sure to be accidentally brushed away or scratched off by the victim long before the meal is complete.

It may give you some consolation to know that when a chigger is removed before it has fully engorged, it cannot bite again and will eventually die. Seems only just, doesn't it?

Itching usually peaks a day or two after the bite occurs. This happens because the stylostome remains imbedded in your skin tissue long after the chigger is gone. Your skin continues the itch, allergic reaction to stylostome for many days. The stylostome is eventually absorbed by your body, a slow process that takes a week to 10 days, or longer.

It is of little comfort to learn that North American chiggers only bite humans by accident. Although our chiggers can feed on most animals, they are really looking for reptiles and birds, their preferred hosts. The itching reaction human skin has to chigger bites occurs because we are not their correct hosts. Chiggers that specifically prey on humans in Asia and Pacific Islands cause no itching!

Unlike ticks, which quietly wait for hosts, chiggers run about almost constantly. Chiggers tend to move towards and onto any new object placed in their environment. You can test your lawn for the presence of chiggers by placing a black piece of cardboard or a white saucer. Vertically on the ground. If chiggers are present they will move rapidly over the object and accumulate on the upper edge where you can see them with a magnifying glass.

The chiggers that annoy people have long legs and can move rapidly. They are capable of getting all over a person's body in just a few minutes. The long trek from a victim's shoe to the belt line (a favorite point of attack) is a climb that take about 15 minutes but is more than 5000 times the chiggers's tiny length. That's about the same as a human scaling a large mountain-and on an empty stomach.

Chiggers are small enough to penetrate the meshes of your clothing, but they usually stay on the surface of your clothes until they come to an easy opening such as your cuffs, collar or waistband. Once they are on your body, chiggers wander about for an hour or more looking for a tender spot to dine. If these traveling chiggers reach an obstacle such as a belt or an elastic band, rather than cross over the obstacle or go under it, they stop and begin to feed.

The distribution of chiggers in any area is extremely spotty. Chiggers tend to congregate in patches, while nearby spots of apparently the same suitable living space is free of them. Often, people will be heavily attacked while sitting in a chigger concentration area, while the lucky folks sitting only a few yards away will get no bites at all

Women and children get more bites than men. Folklore says that if chiggers have a choice, they will attack women before men. But the truth is that men, women and children collect the same number of chiggers during a walk in the woods. Women and children just have thinner skin, and thus more surface area that chiggers can easily bite

Chiggers are affected by temperature. They are most active in afternoons, and when the ground temperature is between 77 and 86 degrees. Chiggers become completely inactive when substrate temperatures fall below 60 degrees; temperature below 42 degrees will kill the chigger species that bite us.

If you can, plan your outdoor activities around your thermometer reading to keep chigger bites to a minimum. Researchers have also found that chiggers actively avoid objects hotter than 99 degrees. Rocks that have been baking in the sun are almost always free of chiggers, and make a safe place to sit when you are in a chigger-infested area.

The first line of defense against chiggers is the right kind of clothing. Shorts, sleeveless shirts and sandals are nearly suicidal in chigger infested areas. Wear tightly woven socks and clothes, long pants long sleeved shirts, and high shoes or boots. Tucking pant legs inside boots and buttoning cuffs and collars as tightly as possible also helps keep the wandering chiggers on the outside of your clothes.

When you get home, change clothes as soon as possible, and wash them before you wear them again. If you don't, the chiggers will get you the next time you put them on.

Regular mosquitoes repellents will repel chiggers. All brands are equally effective. Applying these products to exposed skin and around the edge of openings in your clothes, such as cuffs, waistbands, shirt fronts and boot tops, will force chiggers to cross the treated line get inside your clothes.

Unfortunately these repellents are only potent for two to three hours and must be reapplied frequently.

By far, the most effective and time proven repellent for chiggers is sulphur. Chiggers hate sulphur and definitely avoid it. Powdered sulphur, called sublimed sulphur or flowers of sulfur, is available through most pharmacies. Dust the powdered sulphur around the opening of your pants, socks and boots. If you plan to venture into a heavily infested area, powdered sulphur can be rubbed over the skin on your legs, arms and waist. Some people rub on a mixture of half talcum powder and half sulphur.

But a word of warning: sulphur has a strong odor. The combination of sulfur and sweat will make you unpleasant company for anyone who has not had the same treatment. Sulphur is also irritating to the skin of some people. If you have not used sulphur before, try it on a small area of your skin first.

Some families have problems enjoying summer backyard activities because of chiggers. The most effective means to eliminate these chiggers is just remove the habitat favored by the adults and juveniles. Clearing away brush and weeds, keeping the grass cut close to the ground and removing conditions which attract small animals that cans serve as hosts is the best way to get chiggers out of your yard. Chiggers seldom survive in areas that are well groomed.

A chigger in relation to a human hair follicle Chiggers do not burrow under the skin, but bite us, often at skin pores or hair follicles.

The best precaution against chigger bites is simply taking a warm soapy bath with plenty of scrubbing as soon as possible after exposure. If you bathe at once, while the chiggers are still running over your body, you can wash them off before they bite. A bath will also remove any attached and feeding chiggers before you start to feel the itch.

Warm soapy water is all that is necessary to remove and kill chiggers. There is no need, and it is rather dangerous, to apply household products such as kerosene, turpentine, ammonia, alcohol, gasoline, salt or dry cleaning fluid. Don't do it.

Attached chiggers are removed by even the lightest rubbing. If you are away from civilization, you can remove attached chiggers before they do much damage by frequently rubbing down with a towel or a cloth.

What can you do to alleviate suffering if these precautions fail? Lotions will relive the itching somewhat, but no substance is completely effective. The only ultimate cure is time, since there is nothing you can do to dislodge the chigger's feeding tube, the true cause of your itch. You must simply wait until your body breaks down and absorbs the foreign object.

In the meantime, local anesthetics such as benzocaine, camphor-phenol and ammonium hydroxide may provide you with several hours of comfort at a stretch. Over-the-counter creams can also help. In rare cases, some people are allergic to chigger bites and require prescription medications from their doctor.

The most popular home remedy for which there is little justification is to dab nail polish on the welt. This cannot "smother" the chigger because it has not burrowed into your skin, and it was probably scratched off long ago. The only benefit to applying a thick coat of nail polish is that it helps to remind you not to scratch the bite.

Chronic scratching will only cause the stylostome to further irritate. Scratching deep enough to remove the stylostome will probably cause a secondary infection that is worse than the original chigger bite. If you do scratch, disinfect the chigger bite with topical antiseptics.

Fortunately, in North America the only real danger from chigger bites is secondary infections that develop after scratching with dirty fingernails. Our chiggers do not carry Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia or any other disease. Some veterans may recall this is not the case in Asia and the Pacific, where chiggers can transmit disease called scrub typhus. Luckily, Missourians have nothing to fear from chiggers except that terrible itch.

There is no creature alive that can cause more torment for its size than the chigger. By at least knowing what your attacker is and how it operates, you can itch less this summer, and get more enjoyment from your outdoor activities.

- Nina Bicknese, Natural History Biologist

So, I don't have an answer as to what soldiers did during the war about chiggers. Doctors and scientists who should have known clearly didn't. Why would soldiers be any smarter?

I have serious doubts that too many soldiers cut into wounds with a knife or pin and searching for some pea sized, egg filled flea which isn't there. Soldiers may not have understood why infection occurs, but they would have an idea how infection occurs. (Dirty sharp objects inserted into the skin seem like a bad idea.) I suspect there was much itching and scratching just like we did during In The Van and are still doing a week and a half later.

**PetePaolillo** · 08-16-2010, 07:07 PM

Re: 1861-1865 : the dark ages of chigger remedies

I found a source regarding mosquitoes. Boston journal of chemistry and pharmacy, Volumes 3-4 from 1868. It obviously post dates the war by a few years but interesting anyway . It speaks of mosquito nets and also of burning a type leaf and flower to produce a smoke that actually drugs the mosquitoes. Maybe officers of means would have access to this. The common soldier most likely would not.

"...To Keep Off Mosquitoes.�As the mosquito plague is to be upon us soon again, it may be convenient to many persons to know how to conduct a successful defence against their intolerable attacks.Of the various remedies proposed, none are so efficacious as the use of mosquito netting in the windows and over the bedst. But. as this is not always practicable or convenient, we must resort to other means for bidding defiance to our enemies. Of these, the best is the smoke produced by burning a small quantity of what is technically called "Persian Insect Powder." This consists of the powdered flowers, and perhaps young stems and leaves, of a plant known to botanists as Pyrcthrum carneum, a kind of camomile cultivated largely in Germany, resembling the common garden camomile in many of its properties, and of which all the various "insect," "magnetic," and "fly " powders are wholly or entirely composed. For use against mosquitoes, a small quantity � about what could be heaped upon an oldfashioned silver dollar, if any of our readers remember the size of that coin � is placed, at bed-time, on a plate, and the top of the heap touched with a lighted match until it shows a red coal. The mass wilirthcn smoulder gradually away, filling the room with a light smoke, which narcotizes the mosquitoes, and keeps them quiet for several hours, after which it may be necessary to repeat the operation. The evolution of the smoke will be facilitated by stirring the burning powder from time to time, so as to secure perfect combustion, although this is not absolutely essential. The powder may be also twisted up in a light cylinder of paper, and burnt in that form. Its use as described, against mosquitoes, gnats, etc., has long been known to the Chinese and Tartars, who mould it into sticks and burn in their tents and dwellings, which would, in many cases, be uninhabitable without it. The same substance, in its powdered state, is also used to great advantage in preventing the attacks of roaches, bedbugs, fleas, ants, etc., and in keeping flies off the dining-tables. It is perfectly harmless to mankind, and may be eaten as freely as camomile, and the smoke is not at all injurious. This latter, it may be mentioned in addition, has much the same effect on flies as on mosquitoes�not destroying them, but merely throwing them into a stupor. � Druggists' Circular...."

**Hank Trent** · 08-16-2010, 07:22 PM

Re: 1861-1865 : the dark ages of chigger remedies

Originally posted by Silas View Post

Basically, they didn't know what chiggers were. It was believed that it burrowed into the feet of negroes and other barefooted persons.

I suspect that those references to chigoes were actually pretty accurate. Note how many talk about Central America, the West Indies, and so forth. Check out wikipedia: "The chigoe flea or jigger (Tunga penetrans) is a parasitic arthropod found in tropical climates, especially South and Central America and the West Indies... Breeding female chigoes burrow into exposed skin on the feet of mammals and remain there for two weeks while developing eggs, sometimes causing intense irritation."

That's not chiggers, right?

To find period references to what we'd call chiggers, I wonder if one needs to look up itch mites and/or scabies. While I believe that scabies is caused by another kind of mite than chiggers, they're both caused by mites, and I wonder if they were assumed to be the same in the period?

Ironically, period advice mimics the modern advice you quoted about using sulfur. From Dunglisson's 1865 Medical Lexicon:

The best applications, for its cure, are,--the Unguentum Sulphuris or Ung. Sulph. comp. night and morning; but the unpleasant smell of the sulphur has given occasion to the use of other means;--as the White Hellebore, Potass in deliquescence, Muriate of Ammonioa, Sulphuric Acid, &c., The repugnance of the smell of sulphur ought not, however, to be regarded; especially as, in the course of four or five days, it will, in almost all cases, produce a perfect cure.

I think the author is recommending several days of treatment with sulfur, since the emphasis seems to be on the itch mite which causes scabies and which is transferred from person to person, so the sulfur would be necessary to actually kill the mites on the person and prevent new ones from being picked up from whatever source gave them in the first place, while chiggers, as I understand it, aren't contagious and don't live on people and aren't found living indoors, in bedding or clothing. So sulfur would prevent them, but once you're bit, the sulfur wouldn't really help. Still, I wonder how many people applied sulfur to what we'd call chigger bites, thinking they were curing scabies.

Yep, looks like chiggers might not have been on most people's radar as a separate thing until later:

Trombicula - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiggers#History

Trombiculidae, from Greek τρομειν ("to tremble") and Latin culex, gen. culicis ("gnat" or "midge"), was first described as an independent family by H.E. Ewing in 1944.[9] Then, when the family was first described, it included two subfamilies, Hemitrombiculinae and Trombiculinae. Womersley added another, Leeuwenhoekiinae, which at the time only contained Leeuwenhoekia (Oudemans, 1911). Later he erected the family Leeuwenhoekiidae for the genus and subfamily, having six genera; they have a pair of submedian setae present on the dorsal plate.[10]

References to chiggers, however, go as far back as sixth century China, and by 1733, the first recognization of trombiculid mites in North America were made. In 1758, Linnaeus described a single species Acarus batatas (Now Trombicula batatas). However, most information about chiggers came from problems that arose during and after World War II.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

**Aaron "Isaac" Gardner** · 09-14-2010, 11:03 PM

Re: 1861-1865 : the dark ages of chigger remedies

Pards,
Bell Wiley's "The Life of Johnny Reb" goes into great detail on the subject. Pages 248 through 251 in particular are devoted to this topic. A few select passages are quoted below.

"'When we open our eyes in the morning,' wrote a Louisianan from Virginia in June 1861, 'we find the canvas roofs and walls of our tent black with [flies]'....Another Reb complained, ' I get vexed at them and commence killing them, but as I believe forty come to every one's funeral I have given it up as a bad job.' Seemingly the only recourse was to swearing, but this did nothing to abate disease....But the tales of woe inspired by flies, mosquitoes and fleas were insignificant in comparison to those provoked by lice....Military terms extended also to methods of extermination....Evading them by turning a garment wrong side out was called 'executing a flank movement'....When first infested with lice soldiers commonly experienced a feeling of disgrace; some even threw away their clothes. But as the curse became universal, shame gradually subsided. During periods of rest a few Rebs might always be discerned picking away at their shirts; others sought swifter riddance by singeing their clothes over campfires, a process that reminded one Johnny whose suit was 'well stocked with big fat fellows' of popping corn."

Cheers,
Aaron Gardner
Washington state

Announcement

Announcement

Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Campaign against the Chiggers, Ticks and Fleas!

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment