DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 99 



this genus, tlian that three or four kinds of Pediculus 

 shoukl infest him. If you are convinced by what I 

 have written, you will concur w ith nie in thinking that 

 the one are as much entitled to give their name to the 

 disease which they produce as the other; and the term 

 Acatiasis, by Avhich, with due deference to medical 

 men, I propose to distinguish gcnerically all acarine 

 diseases, will, not bo refused its place amongst your 

 Genera Morborum. 



I shall now proceed to the remaining class of dis- 

 eases mistaken for Phthiriasis; those, namely, which 

 are produced by larvae. There are two terms employed 

 by ancient authors, Eulce(EvXcn) and Scolex (5'xwAjj^), 

 which seem properly to olenote larvae ; but there is 

 often such a want of precision in the language of wri- 

 ters unacquainted with Natural History, that it is very 

 difficult to make out what objects they mean ; and ex- 

 pressions which, strictly taken, should be understood 

 of larvEe, may probably sometimes have been used ta 

 denote the cause of either the pedicular or acarine dis- 

 ease. Eula:, which term, though given by Hesychius 

 as synonymous with Scolex, is by Plutarch used as of 

 different import % seems properly to mean^ those larvEe 

 which are generated in dead carcases, at least so Ho- 

 mer has more than once applied if*: it is therefore a 

 word of a much more restricted sense than Scolex, 

 which probably belongs to the larvae of every order of 

 insects ; for so Aristotle employs it, when he says that 

 all insects produce a Scolex, or are larviparous*^. Yet 

 when Homer compares Harpalion stretched dead upon 



' Jn Jrtaxerx. " //. x- 1. 599. «. 1. 414. 



* Td6 Si ivTouK 'jravTa ffKuXrtxoroKti. Dt General, minimal. 1. 2, e. 1. 

 M 2 



