Sure thing! This is about WW1 in particular, but it gives an idea of how hard the little bastards are to fight.
https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWlice.htm
Where possible the army arranged for the men to have baths in huge vats of hot water while their clothes were being put through delousing machines. Unfortunately, this rarely worked. A fair proportion of the eggs remained in the clothes and within two or three hours of the clothes being put on again a man’s body heat had hatched them out.
So how did that machine work? My search turned up a lot of stuff about it being a problem in the great wars, but urban Rome is a very a different beast, with much less science and much more leisure time and stability.
My first instinct is boiling water. The Romans would definitely have tried that, and few things can survive it, but I’d also guess their textiles wouldn’t have survived well. My next thought is smoke, which I guess they could have just missed, but then again maybe the pests are resistant to it. The eggs at least wouldn’t need to actively respire much. Salt maybe? Tiny things don’t generally deal well with the wrong salt concentrations.
In Auschwitz they used the same cyanide gas tablets as were used on the “prisoners”, but in much greater concentrations, which has become a source of supposed gotchas for denialists.
So how did that machine work?
Delousing machines in the Great War were usually steam machines.
https://rnzaoc.com/2017/03/14/mobile-laundry-and-bath-equipment-1941-1990s/
My search turned up a lot of stuff about it being a problem in the great wars, but urban Rome is a very a different beast, with much less science and much more leisure time and stability.
Not so sure about much more leisure time. Working class Romans would have been working sunup to sundown, while soldiers always have to fight long stretches of boredom, even in the chaos of the trenches.
My first instinct is boiling water. The Romans would definitely have tried that, and few things can survive it, but I’d also guess their textiles wouldn’t have survived well. My next thought is smoke, which I guess they could have just missed, but then again maybe they’re resistant to it. The eggs at least wouldn’t need to actively respire much. Salt maybe? Tiny things don’t generally deal well with the wrong salt concentrations.
Nit combs and oil rubs were the usual treatments. The oil can asphyxiate the bastards so you can catch them, but most’ll start breathing again after a while, so you still have to remove and dispose of them manually.
Did most (urban, non-deployed) Romans have time to go to the baths, at least? I kind of figured it was universal, albeit with some kind of internal segregation like the Colosseum, but I’m realising I don’t actually know that.