A correspondent writes to me, "I have often found a
light cotton or linen bag a great safeguard against the attacks of fleas.
I used to creep into it, draw the loop tight round my neck, and was thus
able to set legions of them at defiance."
Vermin on the Person.--I quote the following extract from Huc's 'Travels
in Tartary':--"We had now been travelling for nearly six weeks, and still
wore the same clothing we had assumed on our departure. The incessant
pricklings with which we were harassed, sufficiently indicated that our
attire was peopled with the filthy vermin to which the Chinese and
Tartars are familiarly accustomed; but which, with Europeans, are objects
of horror and disgust. Before quitting Tchagan-Kouren, we had bought in a
chemist's shop a few sapeks'-worth of mercury. We now made with it a
prompt and specific remedy against the lice. We had formerly got the
receipt from some Chinese; and, as it may be useful to others, we think
it right to describe it here. You take half an ounce of mercury, which
you mix with old tea-leaves previously reduced to paste by mastication.
to render this softer, you generally add saliva; water could not have the
same effect. You must afterwards bruise and stir it a while, so that the
mercury may be divided into little balls as fine as dust. (I presume the
blue pill is a pretty exact equivalent to this preparation.
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