This 1944 U.S. War Department training film (T.F. 8-1288) briefly discusses the devastation that can be caused by louse-borne diseases and shows how lice get into clothes and skin and the various ways soldiers can treat any lice infestations while at a base or in the field. The film opens with soldiers walking in a European city during World War II; other shots show troops moving through the rubble of a war-torn city. Viewers see a microscopic view of a louse (01:01). A nurse tends to a sick patient in a hospital bed. The film shows the statistics for deaths in various outbreaks of louse-borne diseases (primarily typhus). Soldiers wait on deck of a ship as they head to war (02:44). A soldier scratches his crotch because due to being infected with crab louse; a closeup shot shows a crab louse. Footage shows lice on the skin of a person (03:28). A closeup shot shows a louse defecating. The film shows viewers louse eggs and their hatching (04:30). A soldier puts on his jacket. Another soldier leans against a tree while camped out in the field. Two soldiers share a comb when getting ready outside their tent while in the field (05:42). A soldier stops in the field and takes off his gear and clothes to look for lice; lice move along the seam of his clothes (06:33). The soldier shakes out his jacket. Naked soldiers lineup for inspection in the field with a medical officer. The film shows one of the Army’s fixed delousing plants (07:24). Men receive numbered bags and turn in their clothes for delousing. They shower, turn in their towels, are sprayed with a chemical, then inspected for adequacy of treatment. Their deloused clothes are returned to them. In the field, members of the Quartermaster Corps build a delousing fumigation and bath unit (09:00). Men shower in the mobile showers. Their clothing is loaded into a fumigator box. The men are sprayed with a chemical and then inspected. Next, viewers see the smaller mobile Quartermaster sterilization and bath unit that treats lice with steam rather than chemicals (10:20); the soldiers shower on the sides of the steam chamber, which is used to delouse their clothes. Two soldiers put all their clothes and gear into a special fumigating bag (11:10). Methyl bromide is used as the fumigating gas in the bag. A soldier showers under an improvised shower (can with holes in the bottom). Another soldier opens the fumigating bag and demonstrates how to carefully handle and store the bag (13:00). Men demonstrate using an improvised delousing unit (13:34), a “Serbian barrel” that uses a 55-gallon drum and steam to delouse clothing. Insecticide powder for body-crawling insects can also be used (15:40): a man dusts his underwear and shirt with the chemical powder, then rubs the powder into the hairy places on his skin. The film concludes with footage of soldiers moving through a European city, civilians lining a street to cheer the Allied troops, and a soldier driving a jeep loaded with smiling children down a narrow street.

Louse (plural: lice) is the common name for members of the order Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless insect. Lice are obligate parasites, living externally on warm-blooded hosts which include every species of bird and mammal, except for monotremes, pangolins, and bats. Lice are vectors of diseases such as typhus. Chewing lice live among the hairs or feathers of their host and feed on skin and debris, while sucking lice pierce the host’s skin and feed on blood and other secretions. They usually spend their whole life on a single host, cementing their eggs, called nits, to hairs or feathers. The eggs hatch into nymphs, which moult three times before becoming fully grown, a process that takes about four weeks. Humans host two species of louse—the head louse and the body louse are subspecies of Pediculus humanus; the pubic louse, Pthirus pubis. The body louse has the smallest genome of any known insect; it has been used as a model organism and has been the subject of much research. Lice were ubiquitous in human society until at least the Middle Ages. They appear in folktales, songs such as The Kilkenny Louse House, and novels such as James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. They commonly feature in the psychiatric disorder delusional parasitosis. A louse was one of the early subjects of microscopy, appearing in Robert Hooke’s 1667 book, Micrographia.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com