The Daily Commuter has pics of the new subway ad for a mattress encasement company. Featuring three adult bed bugs.
Sadly, this is noteworthy. Finally. A picture of a bed bug in the subway. (But you just know people are going to think bed bugs are all about mattresses.)
Instead of PSAs, we have ads.
Which means we need PSAs more than ever.
But will we ever get them?
By the way, I know that, like the Daily Commuter, you’re thinking back to May, to that inimitable New York Post headline.
The debate over whether there are bed bugs in the subway is so tedious—much more interesting to see what history has to say about the possibility.
Let’s try 1948. A Scottish mystery.
From Time:
A baffling epidemic in Dundee was reported in the same issue of the Lancet. Women were turning up at doctors’ offices suffering from bullous erythema (reddish blisters) on their legs. The doctors wondered: Was it due to chemical burns? To a new skin disease? Dr. John Kinnear, of the Dundee Royal Infirmary, discovered and pondered the fact that all the women had been riding the same tram line. Dr. Kinnear inspected and confirmed a suspicion: bedbugs.
I think this is the journal article (but I don’t have access to it): doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(48)90447-4.
These pages may be of related interest:
