156 SCABIES. 



their eggs from diseased to healthy animals. In man this 

 disease is termed * the itch/ and in the lower animals it is 

 usually alluded to as ' mange/ and in the sheep it is well 

 known as a fearfully destructive disease under the head Scab. 



There are some important points in the history of scabies 

 which apply to this disease as it affects the animal kingdom 

 generally. There is no species in the class mammalia that is 

 not attacked with an insect inducing such a disease, if we 

 perhaps except those that live mostly in water. Zoological 

 gardens and travelling menageries have been very liable to 

 mange or scab amongst the animals exhibited; and it has 

 been ascertained, that though the weak, dirty, and ill-nourished 

 condition of some animals renders them very liable to the 

 disease, they only become affected when diseased animals 

 accidentally come in contact with them. A most important 

 point, very clearly established, is, that although any animal 

 may accidentally be the carrier of contagion between other 

 two, such as a cat or a dog carrying disease from one ele- 

 phant to another, or from one horse to another, that it is 

 essential for the development of a real scabies on any animal 

 that the insect should be proper to that animal. Thus hu- 

 man beings engaged around mangy horses carry the malady 

 from one animal to another, and suffer but very slightly, and 

 only for a very short time, themselves. The parasite which 

 lives on the horse does not live on man, and the parasite 

 that lives on the sheep does not contaminate the shepherd's 

 dog, though the latter may, like the shepherd, or the many 

 rubbing-places on driftways, be the means whereby the 

 malady spreads. 



It appears, however, that animals of the same genus, 

 though of different species, may be attacked by precisely 

 the same insect. Thus, the cat, the lion, the tiger, and other 

 feline animals have one kind of insect common to the whole. 



