Ailment: Bedbugs

Remedy: Bean leaves

Comment posted by David Niven Miller of Perth, WA, Australia on 10 April 2013 at 12:49       1085

YES
A traditional Eastern European remedy for bedbug infestations is to spread bean leaves around the floor of an infested room at night. Fine filaments on the leaves trap the bedbugs, and in the morning the leaves would be covered with bedbugs. The leaves and the bugs were collected and burned.
An article in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface on 10 April 2013 describes how scientists are trying to duplicate this Velcro effect with synthetic materials.
This typifies what is wrong with our modern economics. Previously people used leaves, cheap (or free), effective and non-polluting. Nobody made a profit, no economic benefit measured. If these scientists manage to duplicate bean leaves, no doubt the synthetic product would be expensive and difficult/polluting to dispose of. But apparently we are all better off because someone has made a profit and economic activity can be measured.