20 ANIMAL PAEASITES. 



nosa ; corpore in una massa rotunda coalito ; pedibus crassis, 

 brevilms, quorum anteriores in uiroque genere arolia, quorum par 

 tertium in utroque genere longam setam, quorum par quartum 

 in maribus arolia, in feminis set as gerit ; dor so limarum dentibus, 

 in plures ordines redactis, armato*; organis manducatoriis generis. 

 Animalia vernationem ante maturitatem ter exuentia. Mares 

 omnino tenuiores, minus asperi, machind pedum chitinosa in pedi- 

 bus posterioribus inter se juncta ; femince majores, asperiores, 

 machina pedum posteriorum inter se juncta. Species ovipara. 



There is no doubt that the itch was known to, and much 

 dreaded by, the ancient Greeks and Romans. "VVe might cer- 

 tainly think that Aristotle in the fifth book of his Historia 

 Animalium, cap. 31, knew the mites by the eruption of pustules, 

 as he there says, "the lice (00apg) are produced from the 

 flesh ; when the lice have remained longer upon the skin (orav 

 /Lit\\(t)(fiv t but not, as the Leyden edition translates it, quibus 

 futuris] small pustules, as it were, sprout forth, from which, when 

 pricked, the lice issue/' But as, even with great un cleanliness, 

 lice do not form pustules, or bury themselves beneath the skin, I 

 refer this observation rather to those cases of so-called phthiriasis, 

 which, as we shall hereafter mention, Fuchs has indicated as pro- 

 duced by mites, unless, perhaps, we are to suppose, from the 

 following passage in Avenzoar, who also still calls the mites lice, 

 that with Aristotle, as with Avenzoar, itch-mites were understood 

 by the lice being under the skin. Avenzoar in the twelth century 

 appears first with certainty to have recognised the mites (Soa.b) 

 as the cause of the itch. "Syrones," says he " sunt pedicilli 

 subter manuum crurumque et pedum cutem serpentes, et pustulas 

 ibidem excitantes, aqua plenas, tarn parva animalcula, ut vix visu 

 perspicaci discerni queant." Although, in accordance with the 

 defective entomological knowledge of his period, he may have 

 regarded the animals in question as a species of louse, he cer- 

 tainly meant thereby quite a different animal from the head- 

 louse, and recognised the mite as the cause. Through the whole 

 of the middle ages the knowledge of this mite was now maintained. 

 Scaliger writes in his epistle against Cardanus in 1557 : " De 

 Acaro senibus Aristotelico recto eum cum Garapate compa- 

 rasti. At quare longo minoris animalis oblitus es? Pedi- 

 cellum Piceni, Scirum Taurini, Brigantem Vascones vocant. 

 Nempe admirabile est. Et forma nulla expressa, praeterquam 

 globi. Vix oculis capitur magnitude. Tarn pussillum est, ut 



