This fact disproves the statement of Southall, that the Cimex lectularius was not known in England before 1670, and that of Linnaeus, and the generality of later writers, that this insect is not originally a native of Europe, but was introduced into England after the great fire of London in 1666, having been brought in timber from America.
The original English names of the C. lectularius, were Chinche, Wall-louse, and Punaise (from the French); and the term Bug, which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost or goblin, was applied to them after the time of Ray, most probably because they were considered as "terrors of the night."
In the Nicholson's Journal there is mention of a man who, far from disliking Bed-bugs, took them under his protecting care, and would never suffer them to be disturbed, or his bedsteads removed, till in the end they swarmed to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room; and after his death millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture.
Gemelli, in 1695, visited the Banian hospital at Surat, and says that what amazed him most, though he went there for that express purpose, was to see "a poor wretch, naked, bound down hands and feet, to feed the Bugs or Punaises, brought out of their stinking holes for that purpose."
Mr. Forbes, speaking of this remarkable institution for animals, says: "At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats and mice, Bugs, and other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the Fleas, Lice, and Bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation."
Navarette says that a species of Bugs (most probably a Cimex), which swarm in some parts of China, are a source of great amusement to the natives; for they take particular delight in killing them with their fingers, and then clapping them to their noses.
Democritus says that the feet of a hare, or of a stag, hung round the feet of the bed at the bottom of the couch, does not suffer Bugs to breed; but, in traveling, Didymus adds, if you fill a vessel with cold water and set it under the bed, they will not touch you when you are asleep.
A superstition prevails among us that beds, in order to rid them effectually of Bugs, must be cleaned during the dark of the moon.
The medicinal virtues of the Cimex are given by Pliny (doubtless quoting Dioscorides, ii. 36) as follows: "The Bug is said to be a neutralizer of the venom of serpents, asps in particular, and to be a preservative against all kinds of poisons. As a proof of this, they tell us that the sting of an asp is never fatal to poultry, if they have eaten Bugs that day; and that, if such is the case, their flesh is remarkably beneficial to persons who have been stung by serpents. Of the various recipes given in reference to these insects, the least revolting are the application of them externally to the wound, with the blood of a tortoise; the employment of them as a fumigation to make leeches loose their hold; and the administering of them to animals in drink when a leech has been accidentally swallowed. Some persons, however, go so far as to crush Bugs with salt and woman's milk, and anoint the eyes with the mixture; in combination, too, with honey and oil of roses, they use them as an injection for the ears. Field-bugs, again, and those found upon the mallow (perhaps the Cimex pratensis is meant here; neither this nor the Cimex juniperinus, the C. brassicae, or the Lygaeus hyoscami, has the offensive smell of the C. lectularius) are burnt, and the ashes mixed with oil of roses as an injection for the ears.
"As to the other remedial virtues attributed to Bugs for the cure of vomiting, quartan fevers, and other diseases, although we find recommendations given to swallow them in an egg, some wax, or in a bean, I look upon them as utterly unfounded, and not worthy of further notice. They are employed, however, for the treatment of lethargy, and with some fair reason, as they successfully neutralize the narcotic effects of the poison of the asp; for this purpose seven of them are administered in a cyathus of water; but in the case of children, only four. In cases, too, of strangury they have been injected into the urinary channel. So true it is that nature, that universal parent, has engendered nothing without some powerful reason or other. In addition to these particulars, a couple of Bugs, it is said, attached to the left arm in some wool that has been stolen from the shepherds, will effectually cure nocturnal fevers; while those recurrent in the daytime may be treated with equal success by inclosing the Bugs in a piece of russet-colored cloth."
Guettard, a French commentator on Pliny, recommends Bugs to be taken internally for hysteria; and Dr. James says "the smell of them relieves under hysterical suffocations!"
At the present time the Bed-bug is sometimes given by the country people of Ohio as a cure for the fever and ague. Moufet says: "The verses of Quintus Serenus show that they are good for tertian agues:
Shame not to drink three Wall-lice mixt with wine, And garlick bruised together at noon-day. Moreover a bruised Wall-louse with an egg, repine Not for to take, 'tis loathsome, yet full good I say.
"Gesner in his writings confirms this experiment, having made trial of it among the common and meaner sort of people in the country. The ancients gave seven to those that were taken with a lethargy, in a cup of water, and four to children. Pliny and Serenus consent to this in these verses:
Some men prescribe seven Wall-lice for to drink, Mingled with water, and one cup they think Is better than with drowsy death to sink."
Anatolius says that if an ox, or other quadruped, swallows a leech in drinking, having pounded some Bugs, let the animal smell them, and he immediately throws up the leech.
Mr. Mayhew, in his work on the London poor and their labor, has an interesting chapter devoted to the Destroyers of Vermin, from which we have taken the liberty of quoting pretty largely in the course of this work. His statements can be relied on, and we give them as nearly in his own words as possible. Concerning Bugs and Fleas, and the trade carried on in the manufacture and vending of poisons to destroy these pests, we learn from him: The vending of bug-poison in the London streets is seldom followed as a regular source of living. He has met with persons who remembered to have seen men selling packets of vermin poison; but to find out the venders themselves was next to an impossibility. The men seem to take merely to the business as a living when all other sources have failed. All, however, agree in acknowledging that there is such a street trade but that the living it affords is so precarious that few men stop at it longer than two or three weeks.
The most eminent firm, perhaps, of the bug-destroyers in London now is that of Messrs. Tiffin and Son. They have pursued their calling in the streets, but now rejoice in the title of "Bug-Destroyers to Her Majesty and the Royal Family."
Mr. Tiffin, the senior party in this house, kindly obliged Mr. Mayhew with the following statement. It may be as well to say that Mr. Tiffin appears to have paid much attention to the subject of Bugs, and has studied with much earnestness the natural history of this vermin. He said:
"We can trace our business back as far as 1695, when one of our ancestors first turned his attention to the destruction of bugs. He was a lady's stay-maker — men used to make them in those days, though, as far back as that is concerned, it was a man that made my mother's dresses. This ancestor found some bugs in his house — a young colony of them, that had introduced themselves without his permission, and he didn't like their company, so he tried to turn them out of doors again, I have heard it said, in various ways. It is in history, and it has been handed down in my own family as well, that bugs were first introduced into England, after the fire in London, in the timber that was brought for the rebuilding of the city, thirty years after the fire, and it was about that time that my ancestor first discovered the colony of bugs in his house. I can't say whether he studied the subject of bug-destroying, or whether he found out his stuff by accident, but he certainly did invent a compound which completely destroyed the bugs, and, having been so successful in his own house, he named it to some of his customers who were similarly plagued, and that was the commencement of the present connection, which has continued up to this time.
"At the time of the illumination for the Peace, I thought I must have something over my shop, that would be both suitable for the event and to my business; so I had a transparency done, and stretched on a big frame, and lit up by gas, on which was written:
MAY THE DESTROYERS OF PEACE BE DESTROYED BY US. TIFFIN & SON, BUG-DESTROYERS TO HER MAJESTY.
"Our business was formerly carried on in the Strand, where both my father and myself were born; in fact, I may say I was born to the bug business.
"I remember my father as well as possible; indeed, I worked with him for ten or eleven years. He used, when I was a boy, to go out to his work killing bugs at his customers' houses with a sword by his side and a cocked-hat and bag-wig on his head — in fact, dressed up like a regular dandy. I remember my grandmother, too, when she was in the business, going to the different houses, and seating herself in a chair, and telling the men what they were to do, to clean the furniture and wash the woodwork.
"I have customers in our books for whom our house has worked these 150 years; that is, my father and self have worked for them and their fathers. We do the work by contract, examining the house every year. It's a precaution to keep the place comfortable. You see, servants are apt to bring bugs in their boxes; and, though there may be only two or three bugs perhaps hidden in the woodwork and the clothes, yet they soon breed if let alone.
"We generally go in the spring, before the bugs lay their eggs; or, if that time passes, it ought to be done before June, before their eggs are hatched, though it's never too late to get rid of a nuisance.
"I mostly find the bugs in the bedsteads. But, if they are left unmolested, they get numerous and climb to the tops of the rooms, and about the corners of the ceilings. They colonize anywhere they can, though they're very high-minded and prefer lofty places. Where iron bedsteads are used, the bugs are more in the rooms, and that's why such things are bad. They don't keep a bug away from a person sleeping. Bugs'll come if they're thirty yards off.
"I knew a case of a bug who used to come every night about thirty or forty feet — it was an immense large room from the corner of the room to visit an old lady. There was only one bug, and he'd been there for a long time. I was sent for to find him out. It took me a long time to catch him. In that instance I had to examine every part of the room, and when I got him I gave him an extra nip to serve him out. The reason why I was so bothered was, the bug had hidden itself near the window, the last place I should have thought of looking for him, for a bug never, by choice, faces the light; but when I came to inquire about it, I found that this old lady never rose till three o'clock in the day, and the window-curtains were always drawn, so that there was no light like.