DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 85 



Were our own taxes paid in such coin, what little 

 grumbling- would there be ! 



Two other species of this genus, besides the common 

 louse, are, in this country, parasites upon the human 



body But already I seem to hear you exclaim, 



" Why dwell so long on creatures so odious and nau- 

 seating, whose injuries are confined to the profanum 

 vulgus? Leave them therefore to the canaille — they 

 are nothing to us." Not so fast, my friend — recollect 

 what historians and other writers have recorded con- 

 cerning the Phthiriash or pedicular disease, and you 

 must OAvn that, for the quelling of human pride, and to 

 pull down the high conceits of mortal man, this most 

 loathsome of all maladies, or one equally disgusting, 

 has been the inheritance of the rich, the wise, the 

 noble, and the mighty ; and in the list of those that have 

 fallen victims to it, you will find poets, philosophers, 

 prelates, princes, kings, and emperors. It seems more 

 particularly to have l)ecn a judgement of God upon 

 oppression and tyranny, whether civil or religious. 

 Thus the inhuman Pheretima mentioned by Herodo- 

 tus, Antiochus Epiplianes, the Dictator Sylla, the two 

 Herods, the Emperor Maximian, and, not to mention 

 more, the great persecutor of the Protestants, Philip 

 the Second, were carried off by it. 



I say by this malady, or one equally disgusting^ be- 

 cause it is not by any means certain, though some 

 learned men have so supposed, that all these instances, 

 and others of a similar nature, standing also upon re- 

 cord, are to be referred to the same specific cause ; 

 since there is very sufficient reason for thinking that 

 at least three different descriptions of insects are con- 



