[The laboratory breeding of lice]

The breeding of lice started in Poland as R. Weigl used to prepare a typhus vaccine from the guts of infected lice. Hélène Sparrow introduced this breeding technique in the Institut Pasteur of Tunis in 1927. Lice will feed only on human blood. They were put in small wooden boxes with a thin cloth bottom through which they could bite and feed. Once a day the boxes were placed against the skin of human feeders whose role was essential in the process. The breeding of lice at the Institut Pasteur of Tunis lasted until 1980 and allowed significant advances in the study of typhus and relapsing fever.