Show insects take huge toll toil in damage to books according to 0 some librarians insects of various kinds take a yearly toll in book destruction that amounts to millions ot of dollars says scientific american perhaps tho the worst offenders in tills this respect are bookworms hookworms book hook worms the larvae and an insect known generally as the drug store beetle and scientifically as panl pa nicea cea it seems to have hava a particular fondness for practically everything and thrives on arsenic lead pepper and other poisonous and irritating substances once this beetle lays its eggs in a library and the larvae begin be in feeding librarians are likely to age overnight for the larvae feed voraciously on all parts of books whether they be cheap modern editions or priceless ancient volumes many poisons have been used by various methods of application to defeat tills this foe of books thomas AI hams of the henry 13 library and art gallery san marino calif in the library quarterly told of several of the larvae in that library and trio ino attempts to destroy them acting on the advice of dr tracy L storer of the university of california agricultural college acid gas and several other powerful fumigants fumi gants were used but with indifferent success it was then decided to resort to vacuum fumigation tills would give perfect fumigation into every crevice of books of which large numbers could be fumigated simultaneously neou sly also this method would destroy the microscopic eggs of the beetle as well as the larvae by rupturing the thin membrane at one end of the egg eg and permitting entry of the poison gas the problem of an ideal fumigant was solved when dr arnold 0 beckman of tile the california institute of technology Tc discovered that ethylene oxide and carbon dioxide could be combined in a liquid that la Is belth neither er inflammable nor explosive |