44 ANIMAL PARASITES. 



the sheet seems too complicated, and if the greatest care is not 

 taken, insecure. A sort of sack tied round the neck, trousers or 

 strait-jacket, or wrapping the sheet up to the neck, and putting 

 on linen sleeves sewed up at the fingers, appear to me to be more 



advisable. 







II. For ages, as at the present day, all sorts of acrid, caustic, 

 and poisonous materials, out of the vegetable, mineral, and animal 

 kingdoms (the urine of men, horses, &c.), have been prescribed 

 with the view of killing the mites. We can hardly expect much 

 from the latter, as the animals live a long time, even in concen- 

 trated solutions of the soaps. Hence, also, washing with com- 

 mon soaps (Schinzinger) can hardly do anything, even in slight 

 cases, as I know from my own experience. Little is also to be 

 expected from washing with sulphide of magnesium (Van den 

 Corput). From my experiments, as also from those of previous 

 authors, such as Albin Gras and Hertwig, the essential oils, such 

 as oil of turpentine, anise, and rosemary, are to be preferred to 

 everything, as rapidly destructive remedies against horse- and cat- 

 mites. In the presence of Professors Kobett and Hecker, and of 

 Prosector Maier, Schinzinger, confirmed my statements with 

 regard to the oils of anise and rosemary upon the mites of the 

 human subject. The mites die within sixteen minutes in oil of 

 anise ; still earlier in oil of rosemary. At Berlin it has been urged 

 against oil of anise that it excites too violent inflammation ; an 

 objection which it certainly does not merit, as is proved by the 

 observations made, shortly after the war in Schleswig-Holstein, at 

 Travemunde, where the remedy became again quite a popular 

 one, upon the recommendation of the bath-surgeon at that place, 

 Dr. Liebholt, who advised it in consequence of my memoir, and was 

 further confirmed by the observations made by Dr. Mittrich and 

 myself at the same place, and by those of Dr. Schinzinger. If 

 the charge of extravagance has been made against the remedy 

 (and an esteemed hospital surgeon let me know by a patient sent 

 to him, that my itch-medicine might be good, but that it was 

 enormously dear, as he had employed oil which cost, I think, 

 several dollars in a single cure), that is not my fault. I have 

 recommended essential oil at 6d. to lOd. per drachm, a clear proof 

 that I did not refer to a perfectly pure, expensive, essential oil. 

 For the cure it is sufficient to add to olive oil or almond oil a few 

 drops of the strongest essential oil, and to mix them with the 



