DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 93 



remains, which branches out into two distinct questions. 

 Is scabies always produced by these insects ? Or, if this 

 be not the case, Is the animate scabies a distinct disease 

 from the inanimate ? 



It is very remarkable that Linne, a physician as well 

 as a naturalist ; and De Geer, one of the most accurate 

 observers that ever existed ; should both assign the insect 

 in question as the undoubted cause of the comjuon scabies 

 of their country; the one applying to the disease he was 

 speaking of the epithet of commimissima, and observing 

 the fact to be notorious, [cuique liquet^) and the other de- 

 signating it by its well known French name "Z/« Gale^.^^ 

 And is it not equally remarkable that such men as John 

 Hunter, Dr. Heberden, Dr. Bateman, Dr. Adams, and 

 Mr. Baker, should never, in this country, have been able 

 to meet with it ? Did it indeed exist in our common sca- 

 bies, it seems impossible that it could have escaped the 

 observation of the two last of these gentlemen; Dr. Adams 

 being so well qualified to detect it from his observations 

 in Madeira, and Mr. Baker from his expertness in mi- 

 croscopical researches. Dr. Bateman, in the letter above 

 quoted, says, " I have hunted it with a good magnifier, 

 in many cases of itch, both in and near the pustules, and 

 in the red streaks or furrows, but always without success." 

 In his work on Cutaneous Diseases he tells us, however, 

 that he has seen it, in one instance, when it had been 

 taken from the diseased surface by another practitioner. 

 And though Dr. Willan in his book speaks of the Acarus 

 as the concomitant of this disease, yet his learned friend 



* I am informed by my learned friend Alexander MacLeay, Esq, 

 late Secretary to the Linnean Society, that, in the north of Scotland, 

 the insect of the itch is well known, and easily discovered and ex- 

 tracted. 



