Leeches Won’t Like

This Boot Polish Repellant for Jungle Pest

LATEST overseas research shows that the leech, minor pest of the tropical bush, can be repelled, just as can the mosquito and the bush moka, and in almost the same way.

These frantic creatures look like bike tyre valves, come out in thousands on jungle tracks, attach themselves to damp footwear, and loop their way around until they find a suitable patch of bare flesh, where they attach themselves by a sucker.

Usually they go unnoticed until they have had their fill and drop off, leaving a tiny, freely-bleeding puncture behind' them. Of themselves, they do little harm, but they are repulsive little beasts, and, in the tropics, the small hole they leave can easily become infected and turn into a serious tropical ulcer.

When they attach themselves they in ject a substance that prevents blood clotting, and it is not unusual to reach the end of a day’s walk through the South-west Pacific Islands bush to find yourself with what seems to be half a boot full of blood. They are happy inside a boot, sometimes achieving their purpose by getting in through an eyelet-hole, but if they cannot find any territory to their liking, between sox and shorts, they will crawl even higher—sometimes with start ling, if not embarrassing, results. If dis covered they can be persuaded to release their grip by sprinkling them with salt or burning them with a lighted match.

Anti-leech research is a branch of the science that gave the Pacific forces in the last war the insect-repellant that helped

them to avoid scrub typhus (carried by tiny bush ticks or “mokas”) and malaria (carried by mosquitoes). The clear mos quito-repellant which clouds plastic or unbreakable watchglasses, but does no harm to human skin is well-known now —most civilians have invested in a few tins. ex-Disposals—and rubbed on exposed skin usually keeps the insect pests at bay for an hour or two. The first repeilant was dimethyl phthalate, later a variant, dibutyl phthalate, was found more effec tive.

More recently a British doctor in Cey lon found that when he made a boot polish of oil and wax with dimethyl phthalate added, he could walk through the leech-infested jungles of Ceylon and not a leech came near him. If it is dimethyl phthalate that does the trick, no doubt many residents of the South-west Pacific have already found it out. Those who have not may like to try it.

Why these compounds repel insects and/or leeches has never been explained.

According to some users the repeilant smells “like squashed mosquitoes.” It certainly has little resemblance to the essences of M. Chanel, although most people prefer it to insect stings and their consequences. In the insect world, how ever, it must be a very big stench indeed.