To Get Rid of Fleas.—Remove and clean rugs, etc. Dust Pyrethrum powder into all cracks and crevices where dust or dirt may be lodged to destroy the larvæ. Scrub the floor and footboards with hot soap and water to kill the adult fleas. To eliminate fleas on cats or dogs, dust Pyrethrum powder into the hair. The fleas will fall off while stupefied and should be immediately swept up and burned. Sleeping places of dogs and cats should be cleaned and covered with a carpet or matting that can be shaken into an open fire and the eggs, larvæ and fleas with which it is generally covered, destroyed.

A look at a common flea. Fleas have historically been much more problematic for humans. today they cause small problems with pets, but in years past they were more problematic with pests, or even livestock. Today, even our pets cozy in warm houses covered in vinyl siding bathed in flea dip popping flea pills once a month are more protected from fleas.

During an epidemic of Bubonic Plague destroy all rats, mice, stray dogs and cats, etc., and protect your house by killing all fleas whether in the furnishings or on your family pets. Flea bites are painful and if scratched may cause an abscess, followed by blood poisoning. The pain and itching of a flea bite can be counter-acted by touching the wound with ammonia water. To prevent infection, bathe the wound with a 5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid in water and bandage until healed.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Danger in Farmhouses from Polluted Water
  
  

  Danger in Farmhouses from Polluted Water.  — Of course, the same conclusion holds good for country farmhouses or dwellings when, from motives of convenience, although there is space enough and to spare, but a short distance is interposed between the sides of the hole which is called the well, and which furnishes the drinking water, and the other hole nearby which is called the cesspit, and used as a receptacle for filthy, often poisonous, excrement.  Moreover, there are no doubt many instances where, owing to the inclination of beds of sand or gravel, strata of rock and so forth, impurities of these and other dangerous varieties may be carried, by underground currents, much further than the distances which have been mentioned as measured upon the surface of the earth area in other words, a cesspool on a hillside, 500 feet or more away from a well, may infect the water of the latter, if underground currents favor such contamination.

  We have previously talked about the potential for typhoid and other contagions that can be carried by livestock and transmitted to humans.  Shielding the water supply both of people from animals and animals from people was known 100 years ago, but not always well documented unlike the dangers of mesothelioma or many other deadly situations that people could create themselves.

• The Ribs
  
  

  The Ribs.– the ribs are twenty-four in number, arranged in pairs, well moneyed set in the chest.  At the back they are fastened to the spine, confront the seven upper pairs are tied by cartilages to the breast bone, three are fastened to each other in the cartilage above, and two, the floating ribs, are loose.  The long, slender ribs give lightness; their arched form confers strength, and the cartilages and parts of elasticity; thus the three most essential prerequisites of the chest for the protection of the delicate organs contained within this cavity are secured, whilst the freest motion in respiration is ensured.

  This section starts to get back to some of the vocabulary that is less known today.  Words such as “whilst” and “freest” sound like something out of a bad movie about pilgrims.  In general several other sentences in this section have what I would refer to as emotional connotations that are descriptive but are not necessarily accurate and definitely do not have the cold medical sound that you would expect in a text today.  In other words it doesn’t sound very scientific.

• Bony Frame of the Hand – Palm of the Hand
  
  

  Bony Frame of the Hand. – on turning over this flap we behold the bony framework of this wonderful organ. This seemed to consist of a number of bones, so exquisitely arranged as to combine the greatest possible degree of flexibility and strength.

  Palm of the Hand. – below this is given an elegant, and the same time a true and correct view of the muscular arrangement of the palm of the hand and fingers. Over the wrist to see me annular ligament, that then, tough, strong sheet, which binds the muscular courts and holds them firmly in place us in these anatomical charts have we depicted the perfection of the human hand.

  Sometimes you definitely do get the impression that the author is talking much more about the book they are writing, the pictures in the book and absolutely nothing at all related to the topic.  The author could be talking about acne treatment and it would be more relevant than talking about these charts and the ‘perfection of the human hand’.

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