322 Tni a suctions of the Society. 



is. this," exclaims Thomas Mouffet, an English naturalist of the 

 sixteenth century, "An honourable English lady of sixty years 

 . . . the most vertuous lady of- Penruddock, a knight . . . was 

 fur ten years troubled with these wheal- worms, with which night 

 and day she was miserably tortured in her eyes, lips, gums, soles of 

 her feet, head, nose, and all her parts, that she lived a very grievous 

 life, alwaies without rest, and at last in despite of all remedies, the 

 disease increased, whereby her flesh was . consumed, and she died 

 thereof. I must not overpass this, that the more the women that 

 sat by her. picked them out with their needles,, the more their 

 young ones bred." * 



Thomas Mouffet had closely observed • the organism, and from 

 certain indications in his writings we are. led to believe that he had 

 used a magnifying glass for the purpose. In his " Insectorum 

 Theatrum," the printed editions of which do but the scantiest 

 justice to the beauty and minute accuracy of the original illustrations, 

 he tells us that the Acarus " is the smallest living creature that 

 is, which useth to breed in old cheese and wax, and also in man's skin 

 ... It dwells so under the skin that when it makes its mines it 

 will cause a great itching, especially in the hands and other parts 

 affected with them and held to the fire. If you. pull it out with a 

 needle, and lay it on your nail, you shall see it move in the sun 

 that helps its motion ; crack it with the other nail, and it will 

 crack with a noise, and a watery venome cometh forth ; it is of a 

 white colour, except the head; if you look nearer it is blackish, 

 and from black it is something reddish. It is wonder how so 

 small a creature that creeps with no feet, as it were, can make such 

 long furrows under the skin. This we must observe by the way, 

 that the Syrones [i.e. Acaril do not dwell in the pimples themselves 

 but hard by." f 



Mouffet's work, though completed in 1589, was not published 

 during his lifetime, but was brought out in 1634 by Sir Theodore 

 Touquet de Mayerne. The distinguished Huguenot physician 

 adds a preface of his own, in which he tells us how he was accus- 

 tomed to observe small' creatures by means of magnifying glasses. 

 "'-If you take," says Mayerne, "lenticular optick Glasses of 

 crystal (for though you have Lynx his eyes, they are necessary in 

 searching after Atoms) . . . you will admire to see . . . the Fleas 

 that are curasheers, and their backe stiffe with bristles, their legs 

 rough with hair, and between two foreyards there stands a hollow, 

 trunk to torture men, which is a bitter plague to maids . . .• You 



* Thomas Mouffet, " Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum." The 

 original MS., completed in 1589, is now in the British Museum (Sloane MS., 4014). 

 It fell into the hands of Mayerne and was published by him in 1634. Our 

 quotations are from a charmingly translated English version of the work and of 

 Mayerne's preface that appeared from the hand of J(ohn) K(owland) in 1658, as 

 " The Theatre of Insects or Lesser Living Creatures." 



t Mouffet, loc. cit. pp. 1094 and 1095. 



