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Bugs!
The skeeter buzzed and buzzed but came no where landing. It, like thousand others, came through the slatted window-covering that kept out the sun and rain but not the wind and cold or bugs that moved on the wind. One could swat them but first they had to land, and that usually meant that she had put her long snout deep into the skin. Then there was not only a dead mosquito, but a red splotch of your very own blood, as well as a lump that rose as quick as you could bat an eye or scratch the spot. Which was worse the bite or the itch?
Only one solution, get out the flour jar and matches and blast the critters away. Huh? The old woman knew that taking a tiny pinch of flour twixt the thumb and forefinger and with a twist of the wrist, tossing the powder into the air, spreading it in a wide path; would make a cloud of finely distributed flour.
In the other hand was held the phosphorus match with thumbnail held just so. Driving the nail into the match head and across it with a smooth swipe created a flash and the match come to life, but before it blazed, another event occurred. The dust of flour explodes with a sharp crack and produces a pressure wave that drives the skeeters from the air, hopefully killing them in the process. This same violent rush of air extinguishes the match's flame and the room is again in semi-darkness and maybe free of flying insects for a while. If this isn't the method you choose to use, there are others. (It is interesting to note that in the 1700's actors used a process similar to this to create the illusion of lightening. In the darkened theater, a cloud of finely ground rosin would be tossed into a candle flame producing the same effect as flour. Rosin would lend itself well to this task as it represents one of the few materials that could be ground fine and it was readily available.*)
The Indians discovered bear grease. What can you do with something that is gooey, goes rancid fast and turns to liquid in the heat of summer? Use it for a skin covering not unlike my-lady's lotions, salves, balms and medical potions of today. Does it work? If the exposed skin has a generous slathering, perhaps it limits the target area for an attack by a biting bug. Certainly where chiggers have found a home, it appears to reduce the itch.
In our modern times, chemical dis-attractants are used. These products of man are used to coat exposed skin and discourage the pest. A better approach is to put the products on the hat, shirt collar, shirt sleeves and any other area where the bugs may be attracted. A much heavier dose than recommended for the skin is possible which permits a single treatment to last for a very long time. You can throw away a stained shirt, but you have a hard time replacing skin. There are other ways, here's another.
The old corn-cob pipe was always in the shirt pocket, sometimes still smouldering with the last charge of tobacco, but ready for use whenever the moment arose. Usually the pipe was cold. This time, the old man takes pipe in mouth, after turning it upside down gives a brief blow on the stem. Like as not, this will dislodge any condensed water. If unhappy with the result, the ivory appearing mouthpiece is pulled from the stem and a puff given on it as well. Perhaps a wedge of burned tobacco still remains deep in the bowl. In that case, banging the corncob bowl on his open left hand or perhaps on the rocker's arm will do the trick. Seldom does he have to resort to probing the inner reaches with his pocket knife. After reassembly of the empty pipe, he takes the flat PA can in one hand and the pipe in the other, all are in readiness. The top of the can is popped open with the flick of the thumb against the metal lid revealing the brown-black, cut tobacco. No loyalty here, the tobacco, like as not, was from a different manufacturer and selected by price, not smell or the way in which it bit the tongue when burned. Tilting the can over the pipe's bowl, and with expert thumping on the can's side, a fragile stream of tobacco cascades into the bowl. The flow is interrupted just briefly and the tobacco-stained forefinger of the right hand is used to tamp the tobacco just so. More tobacco is added and tamping repeated. Usually this is repeated three times and the pipe is full. Grasping the pipe between the teeth, a draw of air through the mat of tobacco permits judgment as to whether preparation is complete and the pipe ready for lighting.
The tin is replaced in the shirt pocket, and a box of penny matches removed from the shirt pocket. If penny matches aren't in good supply, a couple of household, strike-anywhere, matches have been broken to fit in the box and substitute quite well. A nothing-in-particular match is chosen and the box of matches is returned to its home in the red woolen shirt that on examination is dotted with burned areas where misadventure of match, stray burning tobacco or errant bits from the pipe have alighted. Now the match, held in the left hand in the grasp of the bended first and second finger. The thumb nail is rested against the match head. With pipe in mouth, right hand holding the bowl in such a manner that it is protected against a puff of wind, the left hand moves to a position with the match just above the tobacco. A flick of the thumb across the phosphorous tip and a curl of smoke and flash of light begins the burning process. In coordinated movement too smooth to match, the thin match stem is moved from its grasp in the bend of the finger to one between the thumb in forefinger. Almost simultaneously, the left hand is shifted so that the beginning flame of the match has an upward path to move on the pine. With a draw on the pipe stem, air is caused to flow around the small flame, and it is drawn into the bed of tobacco. Slowly the match is moved so that it remains just above the tobacco and held there until it either goes out, comes close to burning the fingers of the old man or having started a fire in the bowl, is flicked out by a quick movement of the wrist. A deep and steady draw on the pipe causes a faint trail of smoke to exit the tobacco, through the stem and mouthpiece and into the mouth throat and lungs of the old man. Breathing seems to stop as the nicotine charged smoke seeps into ever crevice of the lungs. Finally the teeth are unclinched, and the pipe is removed from the smoker's mouth. A faint wisp of smoke comes from the pipe bowl signifying that the ritual of lighting the pipe is complete. Now all that remains is the extinguishing of any life still remaining in the match ember. The charred wood is pinched between the thumb and forefinger squeezing out the last bit of heat and perhaps fire; then the blackened stick is dropped to the ground.
With the pipe thus prepared, a mosquito has no chance of approaching our smoker. The haze of tobacco smoke discourages ever the most persistent. Researchers have found that mosquitoes search out their victims by a trail of carbon dioxide emitted from the skin. The smoke from the pipe overcomes any chemical signal they may be following and perhaps they will seek out another victim instead.
While pipe smoking may be a favorite practice of the old man, cigarettes or perhaps a cigar works as well and it is a practice of some fishermen to keep a "Swisher Sweet" in their tackle box to ward off particularly persistent hordes of mosquitoes.
Tobacco has long been known as an insecticide, and Indians in smoking their pipes were well aware of the benefits of smoke in discouraging bugs. If one examines the pipes that they smoked, you are struck by the innovative design. Many of their pipes were shaped as a "T," with the bowl for holding the burning leaves on the short arm of the "T." This permitted drawing air either through the pipe bowl or bypassing it with air moving through the straight pipe. Placement of a finger over either the bowl or the pipe-end allowed more or less vigorous burning of the leaves. "Leaves" could be tobacco, but they tried everything available, not unlike farm children who in times past made smokes from corn silks.
Regarding cancer related death, more people die each year from insect borne diseases than the effects of tobacco.
Perhaps by attacking the mosquito problem, we have created another. A good citizen of Catfish Louisiana had this to say about mosquito control, "It used to be that mosquitoes protected irreplaceable wetlands and acted as a good check on the growth of the human populations. No more, at least not in this neck of the woods." Well, the mosquito may have the last laugh. Since DDT and other pesticides have been banned in this country and others where insect pests are a problem, it is only a matter of time before they reemerge as a plague on humanity and will serve as nature's own method of population control. In the meantime, keep those matches handy.
* "They make lightning at the play-house with rosin pounded very small, and thrown through the flame of a candle." Thomas Brydges A Burlesque Translation of Homer, The Eighth Book of Homer's Iliad, Volume II, pp112, London, Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, Paternofter-Row, 1797.
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