Featured Flea Traps - Who knew this was a thing

I found this on the internet the other day. It's one of those what-is-it type of items that people make wild guesses about. I'd never have known.

Flea trap, 18th century.

Back in the eighteenth century fleas were a common problem for all classes, as they would happily live in everyones' clothes, hair, beds, wigs, and on pets.

For a short period in the 18th century the use of a flea-trap became something of a popular fashion accessory. It consisted of a hollow perforated cylindrical tube, sometimes ornately carved and made of silver or ivory. Inside was a small rod tuft of fur or a piece of cloth. This would be smeared with a few drops of blood to attract the fleas, along with fat and/or honey resin, designed to make the fleas stick fast to it as they crawled inside and which was removed as necessary to get rid of them.

The flea trap was worn on a ribbon as a necklace or hanging down inside a dress – it could also be placed in a bed to attempt to rid that of fleas. A German doctor named Franz Ernst Brückmann (1697-1753) designed the first flea trap in the early 1700s.

Image - flea trap held at Louth Museum, Lincolnshire.

 

...........but fun, though !!!

 

Ewwwwwww.

 

Flea hunting was a popular enough subject for painters.

Flea Hunt by Giuseppi Crespi (1720)



Ghost of a Flea by William Blake (c1820)


The name for the color "puce" comes from the French word for flea.

One purpose of lap dogs was to attract fleas away from their owners.

 

Gross me out.

 

I got beyond the "EWW" factor quickly, once I realized it's all natural and safe.

Nevermind that. Fleas, mites, ticks, worms, maladies we don't want to chance any introduction into our home to start with.

Thanks Bev.

I'd never realized the one by Blake was representative of a "flea" - thanks. I really like the other painting by Crespi too, I enjoy comical antique art! Thanks, MOS.

 

Wow! The “good old days.” It shows human ingenuity trying to tackle a terrible problem. If you’ve ever seen a stray dog or coyote (many in my neighborhood) you really see the suffering of the “flea-bitten.” Combine that with unpaved streets with horse feces, lack of sanitation etc. and flea bites must have been one of the many things that made life then truly miserable.

Thanks for sharing. Typically the antiques that survive today are so beautiful, whether furniture, metalwork, jewelry etc. that I don’t often see the “quotidian,” I.e. daily things.

 

Wow I am glad I was not eating when I read this.

 

"Those we caught we threw away, those we couldn't catch we kept."