An Iowa Garden

When I was a boy, lolling in the long grass of summers so long ago, that my memories of them have aquired a fuzzy patina, like flashback scenes in some old Hollywood movie, I would often see, scurrying across the dark ground, tiny, bright red insects, looking for all the world like little crabs, no larger than the point of the number 2 pencil I kept in my pocket to make note of such things, and we called them mercurochrome bugs. Who first called them that, and whether it was a name in general usage, or limited to our little gang, I never knew, but it most certainly was an apt name, as they were of a deep, saturated carmine, as red as the reddest thing we knew; the small bottle of mercurochrome, with its rubber stopper, that was a summertime fixture, sitting on the sunny windowsill in our Mom's kitchen... mercurochrome was redder than stop signs or lipstick, it was redder than the red boots worn by the cute little girl from across the street, who on rainy spring mornings would splash through every puddle on her way to school, making motorboat sounds. Mercurochrome stained everything it touched, with an indelible, metallic, scarlet color, whether it was a child's scratched skin or his t shirt, or the old green linoleum in the kitchen, if the bottle was spilled. In those long summers, we were up at the peeping of the sun, and out the door, to climb trees, build forts, and race our bikes down the steep driveway, sailing off a ramp built of used boards and bricks, with an old dishtowel tied around our neck, flying behind us, for Superman's cape. The bottle of mercurochrome was frequently needed on those days, our Mom liberally swabbing it on every cut and scrape, until our elbows and knees all glowed red; badges of summertime bravery for small boys. I bring up this recollection, as last night I began to muse about whatever happened to mercurochrome, and whether younger people even know what it is anymore. As I suspected, I found that the FDA had quietly banned it; it was a victim of the mercury scare, when people who in previous times would have contented themselves with wearing tinfoil hats, started having all of their fillings removed to prevent mercury from poisoning their brains. I will say that mercurochrome (merbromin to the chemical industry) is not something you'd use to spice up your lemonade, as it contains both mercury and bromine. In spite of the appearance of my workbench, I'm as interested as the next fellow in a clean environment, but I can remember many times when younger, rolling little balls of mercury around on the floor, or rubbing it with my fingers onto a penny, to make a silver coin, and I doubt an untrained observer could detect any brain damage in me that couldn't be explained otherwise. I am therefore pleased to see that mercurochrome has achieved a dedicated, if small, cult following, with its own fan website, who recommend that you smuggle it in from overseas. I briefly considered this, but decided I probably already have enough mercury in my body to sterilize most cuts.
This, then, brings me back to mercurochrome bugs, which when we were kids we knew were chiggers, but I don't think we knew they were the adult, non-biting stage in the chigger's life... in fact I can remember being disappointed that they always seemed disinterested in latching onto my finger when I would poke it at them. Trombicula, the genus of chiggers,which are mites, are cousins to ticks and spiders. The chigger's eggs hatch in the soil, and the larvae climb up on foliage in masses, where they can latch onto a passerby. The larvae are really tiny; barely visible, and more yellowish in color. They migrate to a hair follicle, usually where tight clothing covers the skin, where they proceed to feed. It is a misconception that they burrow into the skin, the misconception probably resulting from the tiny, almost invisible size of the mite, and because they only feed for 2-3 days, and often have dropped off by the time the welts are noticed. If, after coming in from outside, or at the first sign of a bite, you soap and gently rub your skin in the shower, you may remove the tardy mites, and help the situation a little. Of course, you want to wash all your worn clothing in hot water. When the chigger begins to feed, it does so by injecting digestive enzymes with its mouthparts, down into the dermal layers. These enzymes first of all, dissolve the cells, so the meal can be sucked out, and secondly, a tube, or stylostome is formed through the outer skin, from liquified skin cells that then harden, to act like a straw for the chigger to feed through. This stylostome is why chigger bites become so oozy and crusty after the chigger leaves, with the lymph and liquified material oozing to the surface, and the itching results from the enzymes that were injected.The larva drops off, to go through two more stages, the last being the adult, which is the mercurochrome bug (called red bugs by many, I understand, and called a harvest mite entymologically). The adults are harmless to humans, preferring to dine on the eggs of tiny insects like springtails. I don't see as many mercurochrome bugs as I used to; I don't lay about in the grass for hours like I used to, and my eyesight isn't as keen, but when I do see one of these little critters, I always think of long ago summers... mercurochrome summers.