Unseen Enemies: The Fight to Control Mosquitoes, Lice, Flies and Other Deadly Insects in World War II

By Emory C. Cushing

Unseen Enemies: The Fight to Control Mosquitoes, Lice, Flies and Other Deadly Insects in World War II, first published in 1958 as Entomology in World War II, is the fascinating, little-told story of the vital role played by scientists to control insects and insect-related diseases during the Second World War. In both the European and Pacific theaters of the war, insect-related diseases were a constant danger to soldiers and civilian, ranging from skin irritations to severe, life-threatening fevers of dengue or malaria, to potentially epidemic-causing plagues. Unseen Enemies provides a look at the nature of the most common insects affecting humans – mosquitoes, lice, mites, flies, and fleas, and discusses the often new and innovative compounds and measures developed during the war for control. Fortunately, there are many success stories discussed in the book which aided the Allied war effort, and countless veterans would give thanks for the work done by these researchers to make their grim task safer and more comfortable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barajima Books
• Release date: Jan 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839741708

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Unseen Enemies

The Fight to Control Mosquitoes, Lice, Flies and Other Deadly Insects in World War II

EMORY C. CUSHING

Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired

Unseen Enemies was originally published in 1957 as History of Entomology in World War II (Publication 4294) by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Preface 6

I. Man’s Early Association with Insects 8

THE BEGINNING AND GROWTH OF ENTOMOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES 14

II. Beginning of Research for Military Needs 18

REARING INSECTS FOR RESEARCH 20

RESEARCH ON LOUSE-KILLING SUBSTANCES 21

RESEARCH ON MOSQUITOES 27

RESEARCH ON OTHER INSECTS 31

III. The Fight Against Anopheles Mosquitoes and Their Allies 32

IV. Lice 42

THE NAPLES EPIDEMIC OF TYPHUS FEVER 42

PREVENTIVE MEASURES PRIOR TO D-DAY 45

ANTITYPHUS MEASURES FOLLOWING D-DAY 46

TYPHUS CONTROL MEASURES EAST OF THE RHINE 50

THE PROBLEM OF ANTITYPHUS SUPPLIES 52

V. Mites 53

HARVEST MITES 58

SCABIES 59

VI. Flies and Fleas 60

FLIES 60

FLEAS 63

VII. Entomologists on the Homefront 65

VIII. The Insects’ Toll 74

Epilogue 78

Illustrations 80

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 90

Preface

History reiterates how insects and the diseases they carry have changed the course of wars. Typhus, malaria, dengue, plague, the dysenteries, and numerous other diseases transmitted by insects have played an important part in determining the destiny of nations. The role of insects in limiting production of foods, feed, and fiber is important in peacetime but often becomes an acute problem during periods of war.

World War II differed from previous wars. Far-seeing military surgeons, aware of the part insects play in the outcome of wars, made possible the planning of research programs in entomology. Agricultural leaders realized that agricultural production and its protection were essential to the winning of the war and that insect control was vital to any program of increased production. The successful conclusion of these programs assured ample food supplies and enabled the Allied forces to press forward to victory without the hitherto constant attrition of manpower caused by insect-borne diseases.

This was the first war in which entomologists had a favorable opportunity to demonstrate their ability to prevent annoyance and disease caused by insects. Their development of insecticides to control insects attacking man, animals, and agricultural crops was rated by leading scientists as second in importance only to the discovery of atomic fission. Other discoveries were less spectacular but were nonetheless important.

These entomological developments, originally for war purposes, have benefited the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have been saved from illness—or death—because of the research in entomology and the accomplishments of entomologists during World War II. Many crops show marked increases in yields which coincide with the extensive use of new pesticides developed during and immediately after the war.

These great advances were the result of co-ordinated efforts by many individuals. It is not possible in this history to credit individual entomological contributions to the war effort. It seems more appropriate to emphasize their team accomplishments in the fight for a Fifth Freedom, the Freedom from Many Age-old Insect-borne Scourges.

The manuscript of this History of Entomology in World War II was prepared under the general direction of a joint advisory committee appointed in 1947 by the presidents of the then Entomological Society of America and American Association of Economic Entomologists. Committee members were:

Representing the Association—

Edward F. Knipling

Stanley W. Bromley (deceased)

Representing the Society—

Paul W. Oman

Ralph W. Bunn

Individual sections were reviewed by members of the joint committee and David G. Hall, and supplemental information was added to several of them in order to amplify entomological contributions to the war effort. An entirely new chapter VII on the contributions of civilian entomologists to the war effort was written by a later addition to the joint committee, Ralph W. Sherman.

I am especially grateful to the members of the joint committee in the preparation of the manuscript for their many helpful suggestions and criticisms. I am indebted to my wife for much clerical assistance in arranging and typing the text material, and to Miss Sylvia Gottwerth, Historical Section, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, for assistance in finding needed reference material. Finally, to the Entomological Society of America is due credit for making the preparation of this history possible, and to the Smithsonian Institution for arranging its publication.

EMORY C. CUSHING

I. Man’s Early Association with Insects

Of the creatures that emerged from the ooze of a nebular universe, one was the primordial ancestor of insects, another the progenitor of man. The former set out quickly on its evolutionary trail and eventually produced some 2,000,000 species of insects—several millennia before the human race settled down to stake its chances of survival in the world on the single genus and species, Homo sapiens. From the very beginning, man and insect have been destined, with rare exceptions, to be mortal enemies wherever their trails crossed in their struggle for existence.

The earliest records of man’s association with insects now lie buried under many centuries of antiquity. All evidence remaining indicates that man’s forebears were plagued by insects. When Pithecanthropus descended from the arboreal recesses of his simian ancestors some 500,000 years ago, it seems quite likely that his insect enemies followed him. The Scythians and Peruvian Indians still search for a living morsel of protein and vitamin in the head hairs of their young, a practice still common among monkeys and other primates and probably inherited from some not too remote ancestor.

How many centuries did it take to learn the use of insects for food, poisons, and magic by present-day natives of Ovamboland, Africa? Fifteen thousand years ago an artist depicted on the walls of a Spanish cave the scene of his neighbor robbing a bee tree. Infestations of lice exist today on some of the oldest mummies. About 2500 B. C. a Sumerian doctor inscribed on a clay tablet a prescription for the use of sulfur in the treatment of itch. Modern dermatologists but recently abandoned that remedy.

Only four substances produced by insects have become of worldwide commercial importance to man: honey, silk, lac, and beeswax. After man became dependent upon certain agricultural commodities for food, the pollenization work of insects insured the fertility of his crops. The other side of the ledger, however, is greatly weighted by the misery caused man by his six-legged associates and their close relatives—ticks and mites.

Germs existed in the world long before either man or insects made their appearances. Pathogenic organisms affecting man violated a fundamental biological law somewhere along their evolutionary trail in that they failed to provide a means of insuring their survival. Certain of the insects took over this problem for some of them, usually with immunity from harmful effects by the pathogens. They became the disease carriers from infected hosts to new ones among both animals and plants. This alliance between insects and pathogenic parasites no doubt was in effect well in advance of man’s debut on earth. Man’s forebears and other animals were suffering from such insect-borne diseases not too long after our earliest ancestors emerged.

It is difficult to find authentic information concerning the earliest evidence of insect-borne diseases of man. Vague biblical sketches refer to outbreaks of pestilences resembling bubonic plague. Scourges of flies, lice, and other insects are referred to in various parts of the Bible. Sinuhe [Mika Waltari, in The Egyptian] was the physician to one of the early pharaohs about 2000 B.C. Accompanying the Egyptian army in its battles with the Hittites in Syria, he wrote the following account:

In the third year the plague [undoubtedly flea-borne bubonic plague] came to Syria, for this follows ever in the wake of war, being engendered in any place where great numbers of rotting corpses are heaped together. The whole of Syria was but one huge open grave. Whole races died out so that their speech and customs fell into oblivion. Pestilence slew those whom the fighting had spared. Within the armies of both Horembeb [a general who, by experience, learned about the tremendous number of troop casualties that could be inflicted by insect-borne diseases] and the Hittites it claimed so many victims that warfare ceased and the troops fled into the mountains or the desert, where the scourge could not follow. This plague was no respecter of persons; high and low, rich and poor were its victims, nor was there any known remedy. Those who sickened lay down on their couches, drew a cloth over their heads, and most often died within three days. Such as survived bore terrible scars in armpit and groin, where the pestilent humors were forced out during recovery.

The disease was as capricious in sparing as in slaying. It was not always the strongest and healthiest who survived, but often the weak and starving, as if in these it had found too little to feed on. In tending patients I came at last to let as much blood from them as I dared and to forbid them food so long as the sickness lasted. I cured many in this way, but a like number died under my hands, and I could not be sure that this treatment was correct. [Sinuhe’s treatment of plague is reminiscent of Dr. Rush’s spectacular do something treatment of the victims of yellow fever during the Philadelphia epidemic of 1793.] Yet I was compelled to do something for them, that they might retain their faith in my arts. A sick man who loses faith in his recovery and his physician’s skill dies more easily than one who believes in them. My treatment was better than many others since it was at any rate cheap for the patient.

Sinuhe writes concerning a review of the troops by Horembeb, the Egyptian general: "When all were paraded, Horembeb stepped out from the dirty hut with his golden whip in his hand, and a servant held an umbrella over his head and kept