leg diseases

The bite is visible as a minute red macule which irritates,greatly. The linear scratch marks which patients with pediculosis corporis make on their shoulders with their nails are very characteristic and almost enough for a diagnosis. Pediculosis corporis is quite common in elderly people living in hostels or under crowded conditions, and scratch marks on the shoulders in such patients should always lead to a careful search for parasites or ova on the underclothes. Pediculosis corporis, and the scratching to which it gives rise, cause after a time thickening and pigmentation of the skin, the so-called Vagabond's Disease.

 Treatment

 A hot bath followed by thorough powdering  of the underclothing with a l0% D.D.T. powder will rid the patient of lice. The impregnation of underclothing with l-2% by weight of D.D.T. will keep the wearer free from body lice though not from crab lice, for about one month in spite of weekly laundering. A powder consisting of l0% of D.D.T. in an inert diluent proved invaluable in the army and in controlling louse infestation in civil populations during the late war, in the Naples typhus epidemic in 1944. The powder is blown into the clothes with a blower at five sites without undressing the patient.