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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bev aka thelmasstuff, post: 3638266, member: 23&quot;]I found this on the internet the other day.&nbsp; It&#039;s one of those what-is-it type of items that people make wild guesses about.&nbsp; I&#039;d never have known.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Flea trap, 18th century.</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Back in the eighteenth century fleas were a common problem for all classes, as they would happily live in everyones&#039; clothes, hair, beds, wigs, and on pets.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>Image - flea trap held at Louth Museum, Lincolnshire.[ATTACH=full]307887[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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