NMSU Researchers “Rediscover” Ancient Insect Repellent

In ancient times, nobody had it easy.  If it was hot, you were hot. If it was cold, you were cold. Procurement of food and water was a daily struggle.

But, no one ever asks the important question: how did they deal with all those damn, ancient mosquitos?

Well, a team of researchers at New Mexico State University has partially answered that question. It turns out, they had bug repellent all those centuries ago.

Unfortunately, it probably smelled really, really bad.

NMSU biology professor Immo Hansen, says that the idea for the research came to him from an archeologist who had discovered ancient accounts, some in journals of the conquistadores, some from ancient Native American accounts of an effective insect repellent salve from hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago.

The ancient secret was rancid, foul-smelling animal fat.  One might think rotten animal fat might attract mosquitos, flies, midges and no-seeums.

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Well, Professor Hansen had a lot of testing equiptment at his disposal and this folk recipe had never been tested under lab conditions before, so…the experiment was on!

Along with Ph.D biology student Haily Luker , he got some really gross, fetid animal fats and oils. Slathered up an arm (whether his own or a student who needed extra credit) and then stuck the arm into a mosquito cage, which is a thing that exists.

The findings: the ancient native concoction worked fairly well! It smelled horrible but it kept the skeeters at bay…for a short while. Hansen and Luker report that the effects of the repellent wore off rather quickly.

Will this lead to some advanced, rancid fat-based product? Probably not, since OFF works better, longer and doesn’t smell as bad. But…science and history! Cool!