DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 91 



V 



probably to know tlie arguments that may be adduced 

 in confirmation of this opinion ; I wiil therefore en- 

 deavour to satisfy you as well as I am able. The fol- 

 lowing history given by Linne seems to prove the 

 dysentery connected with Acari. 



Rolander, a student in Entomology, while he re- 

 sided in the house of the illustrious Swede.' was at- 

 tacked by the disease in question, which quickly gave 

 way to the usual remedies. Eight days after, it re- 

 turned again, and was as before soon removed. A third 

 time, at the end of the same period, he was seized with 

 it. All the while he had been living like the rest of the 

 family, who had nevertheless escaped. This, of course, 

 occasioned no little inquiry into the cause of what had 

 happened. Linne, aware that Barthoiinus had attri- 

 buted the dysentery to insecls, which he professed to 

 have seen, recommended it to his pupil to examine his 

 feces. Rolander, following this advice, discovered in 

 them innumerable animalcules, which upon a close ex- 

 amination proved to be Acari. It was next a question 

 how he alone came to be singled out by them ; and thus 

 he accounts for it. It was his habit not to drink at his 

 meals; but in the night, growing thirsty, he often sip- 

 ped some liquid out of a vessel made of juniper wood. 

 Inspecting this very narrowly, he observed, in the 

 chinks between the ribs, a white line, which, when 

 viewed under a lens, he found to consist of innumerable 

 Acari, precisely the same with those that he had voided. 

 Various experiments were tried with them, and a pre- 

 paration of rhubarb was found to destroy them most ef- 

 fectually. He afterwards discovered them in vessels 

 containing acids, and often under the bung of casks^'', 



* Jm.ccn. Ac. v. 94-GS. 



