Elsewhere, Mellanby describes more closely these Demon cockroach traps, which he also used to trap cockroaches in the rat room to study their periodic activity: These traps are circular, 22 cms in diameter at the base, with sides sloping gradually … Continue reading
Despite its disobliging disposition, the bed bug must eventually give up its secrets to researchers. This process is slow and apparently fraught with failure, but what is being learned is there for us to read and understand if only we … Continue reading
Wilbur A. Sawyer was an American tropical disease specialist. His wife, Margaret, was a bacteriologist who left her own career in medicine when they married. The family was relocating to New York City in the fall of 1924 but Dr. … Continue reading
The scientific and technical literature is rich with opportunities to notice changes in the cultural thought and experience of bed bug infestations. And, beyond that, the “noise” introduced by the biases of authors is interesting all by itself. Observing the … Continue reading
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Steven W. Smollens has practiced landlord and tenant law in New York City for 34 years. I have (in my History of the Misery of Bed Bugs collection) a set of notes, passed along like contraband, of his New York … Continue reading
Well, maybe one more history post. The papers say the city is ready to do battle, more on what that might mean later. Of course bed bugs have always been a big deal. Eradicating them, a big production. We had … Continue reading
There are so many things I’ve wanted to write about in the time I’ve been away (and not just about historical research, heh). But I will make do with telling you that C.G. Johnson’s Ecology of the bed-bug (1941) is … Continue reading
So there was that hotel stay in 1907—the attack, to use his word. But two years earlier Girault had published a major article about bed bugs followed by an extensive critical bibliography, likely the entire literature of bed bugs until … Continue reading
Alexandre Arsène Girault checked into an elegantly furnished room in one of the best hotels in Cincinnati on October 29, 1907. It was close to midnight. Later he would have occasion to ask the hotel manager if anyone had slept … Continue reading