Medicine: How to Be Repulsive

Sometimes, in Southern California, the fleas get so bad that people can’t enjoy the wonderful, dry weather. Casting about for a remedy, Santa Barbara’s Dr. Howard L. Eder decided to dose his patients with thiamin chloride (vitamin BI)—a treatment which had proved successful in repelling mosquitoes.

To his amazement, he found that liberal dosing (internal, not external) with the vitamin made his patients—and even their dogs—repulsive to fleas. In six months, the fleas began to get interested again.

Dr. Eder was not sure why fleas will not bite the B1 people: “Apparently fleas, like birds, smell their food before they eat. . . .”