408 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No� 1825. DECEMBER 24, 1910. INSEC TS DESTRUCTIVE TO BOO1\5.* PE.STS OF T H E. LIB R A R Y. BY WILLIAM R. REINICI\. FOR a numMr of years I have been investigating by various writers, and the statements made to me which a cavity or cavities were found in the interior the subject, "insects that destroy books," and this in letters by many librarians and others, especially of the volume without sho,'ing the means by which paper is simply a summary of a few of the facts that where the libraries are located in the warmer regions, the insects obtained access thereto. I have discovered and collected. No attempt has I am positive that this statement is true. Those in Looking at the various ways in which books were been made to make it complete, either as to species charge of collections in the temperate regions, whose ravaged, and knowing from my own studies and ob­ of insects, or subject matter under any particular volumes are not as rapidly destroyed, are apt to servations in entomology that the insects have won­ group. These, in a complete form, with the results doubt the enormous destruction of books each year derful instinctive powers, which in a number' of cases of the further experiments now being made to prove by practically unseen life. could very easily be classed as intelligence, I have the theory advanced, will be published later. Again that this destruction is great enough to come to the conclusion that there must be other rea­ Various insects have been named as the true book­ cause alarm is indicated by the number of prizes of­ sons besides the desire for paste to cause these vari­ worm. The insect known as the cigarette beetle, fered by various bodies for means to prevent this ous depredations, and I have asked myself this ques­ Sitodrepa panicea, is given as the true bookworm of never ceasing destruction. Prizes were offered by tion: As we know that the dog and cat, when sick, Prof. L. O. Howard, United States Entomologist; but the Royal Society of Gottingen in 1774, the Interna­ look for certain herbs, grasses, and putrid animal if the name of "bookworm" is given to the insect tional Libra.-y of Congress in 1903, etc., but as yet matter, being directed by their instinct to that sub­ which causes the greatest destruction, then this no satisfactory results have been obtained. I hope stance which contains the vegetable and the mineral species will have to be placed quite a distance down before long to be able to present to the world the matter which are best suited for the particular ail­ in the list. Personally, I will not try at the present cause of tnese ravages and a means of prevention. ment from which they were suffering at that particu­ time to settle the question as to the species which Those who have read articles upon the destruction lar time, may not the insect, with an instinct as is to be given this doubtful rank. of books and papers by insects must have noticed that great, if not greater, have use for them for the same That a knowledge of the fact that books are de- in almost all the papers the author' has simply stated purpose? It seems to me that the lower we go in " WOODEN BINDDfG OF SIXTEENTH CENTUHY HIDDLED BY BOOKS INJURED BY BOOK LICE, <. SILVEH'E'ISH, E'l'C. I,AHVlE OF BOHERS (ANOBHITJl\J) THE INSECT ENEMIES OF BOOKS. stroyed by lllsects is not of recent acquisition may that the insects were after the paste used in the the scale of life, according to the classification of the be gathered from the writings of the ancients. binding; and most of the prizes that have been of­ systematists, the more wonderful are the instinctive The earliest reference according to Austent "was fered from time to time haye the same object in faculties of the small forms of life, and that if a rescued from oblivion by the lad Salmasius, in 1606, view. If the paste is the object of attacK, why is it classification were made according to instinctive fac­ when he discovered the manuscripts or the anthology that photographs are not eaten which are fastened ulties, it is a question whether the ants would not of Caphalus, in the libraries of the Counts PalatinE', to the cardboard by means of this substance? outrank the animals by many degrees. at Heidelberg." Among the fragments in this collec­ Although some ot these writers have stated that The new school of medicine, in departing from the tion is one attributed to Evenus, the sophist-poet of the bindingu were bored or gnawed through a gal­ system of the old, that in which Hahnemann in follow­ Paros, who wrote about 450 B. C. lery leading from an opening made on the outside ing Paracelsus claimed that certain symptoms in human Aristotle speaks of a "little scorpion-like creature toward the interior of the book; that the glazed beings required mineral agencies and vegetable com­ found in books," which was evidently a species of surface of the paper was eaten off; that in a few pounds in potencies equivalent to the complaint, Acarina or pseudo-scorpions. Horace and Ovid also cases that portion of the page which had received neglected .to study the power of drugs, and results not speak of the bookworm. Pliny, in his "Natural His­ the impress of the printer's ink only had been eaten, anticipated frequently occur, caused by not using tory," has very little to say upon the subject. Mar­ making the rage look as though the letters had been judgment in the quantity of the dose given. Those tial, who lived in the first, and Lucian, in the second cut out with a punch; and again, that a cavity has interested in finding means for destroying life that century, A. D., speak of the bookworm, and many been found in the interior of the book, without show­ is destructive should use such means in their re­ other writers mention them; but it was not until ing by what means the insect was able to obtain ac­ searches as those advocated by Hahnemann. 1665, when Hook, in his "Micrographia," published cess; not one of them, gS far as I can find, has rea­ Starting upon this theory, which I contend will he an account and gave an illustration of the insect, soned upon the question that there might be other found to be true when biologists, physicists and that entomologists were enabled to determine with causes for these ravages of the insects upon books entomologists have searched more deeply into the evo­ any accuracy the insect that was .named as the cause besides the hackneyed phrase that "they are after the lution of th� lower form of life, I divided the books of the destruction of books. It is impossible from paste used in the binding in order to obtain the into classes according to that portion which was Hook's description to tell wJ?at species was meant; star'ch contained in it." damaged, and will describe some of the most im­ but the illt:.stration accompanying the description Having read hund.reds of articles and notes upon portant and name a few of the insects which attack shows that it must have been a species of Thysanura this subject, and having had the pleasure, from my that particular group. or Oollembola, commonly known as silver-fish and standpoint-but not that of the librarian-of examin­ PASTE EATERS.-Science has llroved beyond doubt spring-tails. ing many hundreds of volumes of ancient and recent or question �hat there can be no destruction of mat­ It has been stated that more books and papers are date of publication. with bindings made of different ter', only a change of form. If there is no destruc­ destroyed by small forms of life in one year than by leathers, paper made of rag, wood, and other ma­ tion of matter, then we have a demonstration of the fire and water combined; and, from the fads givRn terials, my attention was before long attracted by theory of the worm or larva having been attracted t.o the fact that in the great majority of books examined the paste lIsed in the binding of the books. In the !:' Copyrighted. uno) hy William It. Rdllick. no attempt was made by the insects to eat the paste '1 Bookworms in Fact and Fancy; Popular Science Monthly, 18U9, agricultural kingdom we find that rye, wheat and the voL lv. used in the binding, and also by the many cases in various other varieties of grain are constantly being © 1910 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC. DECEMBER 24, 1910. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1825. 409 damaged by the work of different species of insects. species that may be classed as paste eaters: Pyralis particular acid or poisons which the "bed-bug" re­ These insects and other small life live upon the tarinaUs, a moth, and Tenebroides mauritanicus, Sil­ quires, there you will find the insect with all its in· exudations of plant life, and the human body is also vanus surinamensis, Calandra grM�aria, and Tene­ stinctive faculties. Why do they live and thrive giving off exudations in the form of perspiration brio molitor, all beetles. under wall paper? Many wall papers, some of which which is also a source of nourishment to many forms PAPER.-Paper is made from cotton; linen, hemp, are known to be a cause of illness to mankind, have of life.