IMPACT ON HISTORY

IT’S A FACT

by James Sydney

Remembering Chigger Days of the Caribbean

People of the Caribbean who have lived long enough still remember the days when chiggers or jiggers were rampant. Children, who as a rule went barefooted for much of the time, would often come down with sick feet and find walking painful for a while. The culprit was the small tropical chigger flea, also called sand flea, pigue, nigua, pico, and bicho de pie (bug of the foot). Its scientific names are Tunga penetrans and Pulex penetrans. Normally, the offending fleas live in warm, dry soil and sand of beaches, stables, and stock farms, but they delight in moving to the unprotected skin of a warm-blooded host. The skin of humans do just fine, but they are just as willing to infect the skin of cattle, sheep, horses, mules, rats, mice, dogs, pigs, and other wild animals. Although regular folk did not call the condition Tungiasis, that’s its name.

THE GUYANA STORY

WORKERS' PROTESTS IN 1917

As a result of the World War which broke out in Europe in 1914, essential imported food supplies became scarce, and prices of these commodities rose very quickly. Many merchants in Guyana were also involved in black-marketing, and this caused prices of foodstuffs to rise even more. But while prices were rising, wages remained stable, and this did not help in any way to improve the economic conditions of the people. Workers were very dissatisfied, and throughout 1915 and 1916 there were short strikes in Georgetown and on the sugar estates.