The Cockroach

Abstract

IN some ships infested with these insects, sailors frequently complain of having their toe and finger nails, and the hard parts of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, nibbled by them. The men have exhibited to me their nails and skin, which had the appearance of having been attacked. I can vouch for the following, as I was the unhappy subject of it. On returning from a shooting excursion in salt swamps in tropical Australia, with my feet blistered and sodden, I was put to sleep in a room swarming with cockroaches (the small species). The night was intensely hot, and my feet were exposed. I had slept soundly for some hours, when an intolerable itching and irritation about my feet awoke me. I felt these objectionable insects running over and gnawing at my feet. On striking a light, I found they had attacked the skin, and entirely eaten it away from a large blister, leaving a raw place as large as a shilling. I slept again, and in the morning found they had completed the work, and established a painful sore. The whole of the hard skin on the heel was also eaten down to the pink flesh. The nails were not attacked. I have now, at a distance of four years' time, bluish scars on the skin.