A History of Pest Control

Abstract

The organisms that disturbed prehistoric man's nomadic hunting-gathering life-style must have been few. As humans of this period grew no crops and had no permanent homes and few possessions, we can imagine that their pest problems would have been limited to those organisms, such as lice, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes, that caused people physical discomfort. Prehistoric control of these pests—picking, slapping, and squashing— could hardly be called a science.