How bad were lice infestations in the First World War? One soldier’s shirt “was found to contain 10,428 lice, and more than 10,000 eggs were found under a microscope,” while nurses serving in the 1915 typhus epidemic in Serbia reported “gray patches the size of one’s two hands upon the bodies of men brought into the hospital. The pests were so thick in these patches that from a little distance they presented the appearance of felted cloth.”*
All armies struggled with the problem. The British reported that 95% of men who had served for six months were lousy. On average, they estimated that each man carried 20 lice, but some were super carriers, infested by 100 to 300 insects.*
In addition to examining the severe discomfort and intense itching caused by “cooties,” researchers had begun to learn that lice carried disease. A National Geographic article published in 1918 entitled “Hospital Heroes Convict the ‘Cootie’” describes a US Army medical research program that recruited 66 healthy volunteers for testing to determine if trench fever was “a germ disease.” Trench fever was a serious threat, causing recurrent chills and fever. It was sometimes accompanied by semi-paralysis, and in the average case, a man diagnosed with trench fever “was unfit as a fighter for six months.”**
In one experiment, healthy soldiers were injected with blood that had been taken from men with trench fever: 23 of the 34 men inoculated developed the disease. In another experiment, researchers collected lice from men with trench fever, then allowed these lice to bite 22 of the healthy recruits. Twelve of them developed trench fever.
National Geographic celebrated the courage of those who had volunteered for medical experimentation:
The experiments conducted on America’s Sixty-six have fastened the guilt of contagion-bearing upon the body louse.... It is a simple problem in multiplication to appreciate how tremendously America’s Sixty-six may have contributed to the power of our blows against the Huns by giving science the information which will result in keeping our soldiers fit for service.**
Striking a different tone, a poem published in the AEF’s Stars and Stripes imagines weaponizing the cootie:
If I were a cootie (pro-Ally, of course),
I’d hie me away on a Potsdam-bound horse,
And I’d seek out the Kaiser (the war-maddened cuss),
And I’d be a bum cootie if I didn’t muss
His Imperial hid from his head to his toe!
He might hide from the bombs, but I’d give him no show!
If I were a cootie, I’d deem it my duty
To thus treat the Kaiser,
Ah, oui.
I’d hasten away to the Prince of Bavaria,
And chew him a round or two–under the Linden–
Then pack up my things and set out for old Hinden–
(Old Hindy’s the guy always talking ‘bout strafing)–
To think what I’d do to that bird sets me laughing!
If I were a cootie, I’d deem it my duty
To thus treat the Prince and old Hindy,
Ah, oui!
I’d ne’er get fed up on Imperial gore–
I might rest for a while, but I’d go back for more.
I’d spend a few days with that Austrian crew,
And young Carl himself I’d put down for a chew;
There’d be no meatless days for this cootie, I know,
They’d all get one jolly good strafing or so.
For if I were a cootie, I’d deem it my duty
To thus treat their damnships,
Ah, oui!
—A.P. Bowen, Sgt., R.T.O. (published 1 Nov. 1918)
But the US Army was determined to eradicate the pest. Men were swabbed with gasoline, smeared with ointments (vermijelli—a mix of crude oil and melted paraffin—and mercury), and dosed with NCI powder (a mixture of naphthalene, creosote, and idoform). But the most effective way to combat the louse was with boiling water, the only truly effective way to kill the nits or eggs.
Delousing machines, nicknamed by the troops “cootie mills,” were developed for the field. Jack Campbell, a soldier with the 317th Infantry, wrote in his diary,
A “cootie-mill” is a wonderful institution. You go in infested with lice, and in vile shape – you come out sweet and clean. These “mills” are all built pretty much on the same plan and you can get everything – shower, shave, shoe shine. They are long narrow buildings only one room thick. First you enter “the office” where you give your “case history.” From here you enter the “undressing room” and here all your clothes, except underwear and socks, are tied into a tight bundle with your belt and put into a wire basket which is carried, on a moving belt to the steam chamber – while you, minus your underwear and socks, are given a towel and a piece of soap the size of a loaf of sugar and herded into the showers. Naturally, with hundreds waiting in line each soldier's time under the shower is limited and since these showers “just drip” instead of “shower” you are lucky if you get wet all over in the time allotted. From the shower you enter the dressing room where you are given clean underwear and socks, and also waiting you are your “deloused” clothes – two sizes smaller from the steaming and very, very wrinkled.”***
Double-barrelled cootie cannon
By April of 1919, the Stars and Stripes boasted, “Whole Cootie Clan Rapidly Dying Off.” In early November at the time of the armistice, it was estimated that 90% of all AEF troops were “lousy,” but four months later, no more than 10% of American soldiers were infected: “Of the 454,705 troops examined, only 8,820 were found to be harboring cooties.” The aggressive elimination of the disease-bearing pest was attributed to a combination of factors: “Better living conditions, increased facilities for bathing and individual determination not to be infested with cooties, together with the activities of the delousing and bathing outfits.”****
Ah, oui!
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* “Cooties and Courage” by Herbert Corey, National Geographic, June 1918, p. 509.
** “Hospital Heroes Convict the ‘Cootie,’” National Geographic, June 1918, p. 510.
*** Jack Campbell's Diary, Co. G, 317th Infantry, Virginia Historical Society, 9411.
**** “Whole Cootie Clan Rapidly Dying Off,” Stars and Stripes, 4 April 1919, 3.
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