Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Bug

BUG, in zoology, a species of cimex, too well known to need any description. Of the various recipes for the extirpation and prevention of these vermin, the following have been found, by experience, to be the most effectual:

1. Take of the highest rectified spirit of wine, half a pint; newly distilled oil, or spirit of turpentine, half a pint: mix them together, and crumble into it half an ounce of camphor, which will dissolve in a few minutes: shake the whole well together, and with a piece of sponge, or a brush dipped into it, anoint the bed, or furniture, in which those vermin harbour and breed; and it will infallibly kill and destroy both them and their nits. Should any bug, or bugs, happen to appear after once using it, the application must be repeated, and at the same time some of the mixture poured into the joints and holes of the bedstead and head-board. Beds that have much wood-work, require to be first taken down, before they can be thoroughly cleared of these vermin; but others may be perfectly cured without that trouble.—It is advisable to perform this work in the day-time, lest the spirit contained in the mixture take fire from the candle, while using it, and occasion serious damage:

2. Or, Take an ounce of quicksilver, and the whites of six or eight eggs; beat them together till the quicksilver appears like a black sediment at the bottom of the bason; then rub it over all the joints and crevices of the bed with a painter's brush. This will have the desired effect, while it gives a varnish to the furniture, and imparts no disagreeable smell.

3. Or, mix the pulp of the bitter apple with a solution of vitriol, and apply the composition carefully to all the crevices, which serve as a nursery to the bugs. The solution alone has proved effectual: but, if applied to stone walls, it may be mixed with lime, which will give it a lively yellow colour, and ensure success.—The boiling any kind of wooden work in an iron caldron, with a solution of vitriol, effectually prevents it from taking the worm, and preserves it from rottenness and decay.

4. Professor Kalm mentions, that from repeated trials he has been convinced that sulphur, if properly applied, will entirely destroy bugs and their eggs, in beds or walls, even though they were ten times more numerous than the inhabitants of an ant-hill. And Dr. Forster, his translator, adds that a still more effectual remedy is, to wash the infected furniture with a solution of arsenic.

5. The cheapest, and most pleasant remedy, has lately been discovered by J. G. L. Blumhof, of Gottingen; who asserts in the Economical Journal (in German), for June 1797, that the green leaves and twigs of the Bird's-Cherry, or Prunus Padus, L. if placed in the crevices and holes of places frequented by bugs, mice, and rats, will effectually expel them.