Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends pest-control substances such as arsenic compounds, strychnine, or cyanide — in some cases applied to food crops. These substances are lethal to humans and animals, and their use is now banned or strictly controlled.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Bedbug
a nocturnal insect infesting houses the world over. The bedbug is reddish brown, with a flat, ovate body about one-sixth of an inch long. It lives in cracks in furniture, floors, and wood-work. Determined housekeepers say that the bedbug can be exterminated in any home by a repeated feathering of all possible lurking places with corrosive sublimate dissolved in alcohol. The bedbug is wingless. The nest of the barn-swallow is infested by a related species. There is a popular impression, probably unfounded, that chimney swallows bring bedbugs.
Volume I · Aiton’s Encyclopedia