ACARUS SCABIEI. 45 



assistance of a gentle heat, for the purpose of obtaining a better 

 diffusion. In consequence of my statement regarding oil of anise, 

 Jaime, of Berthelsdorf, brought rosemary oil, which does not 

 smell so strongly, into use. Its efficacy against the mites has 

 been confirmed both by Schinzinger and myself. I do not know 

 how it is that Schinzinger finds fault with the remedy because 

 it has an unpleasant odour, and acts injuriously upon the 

 lungs and chest. The former I have not found to be the case, 

 and the latter may be avoided, by allowing the patient to move 

 about for a little while in the open air or at an open window. 

 But however this may be, both oil of anise and oil of rosemary 

 are good destroyers of mites (not " Milbenkamme," as I have 

 said, according to Gudden), and 1 am firmly convinced that they 

 will gain friends. All that is necessary is to give a bath, and 

 have the patient rubbed in the bath on the affected spots and 

 over the whole body with the coarsest pumice-stone soap, in order 

 to tear open the galleries and pustules, and then, after good and 

 sufficient drying,, to rub in the oil; or the skin may be rubbed 

 with the pumice-stone soap without a preliminary bath, and after- 

 wards with the oil. From my observations, also, no further dis- 

 infection of the linen is necessary, as any mites which may exist 

 in the clothes are also killed by the oil. As the eggs require 

 eight days for their development, I advise, in order to avoid 

 relapses, that during the first 8 14 days the oil should be 

 rubbed in from time to time every five or eight days. (See Volz 

 upon Upmann's method.) 



Very recently the oil of turpentine, which was also tested by 

 me as a mite-killer, has been brought into use by Upmann, in 

 the Military Hospital at Karlsruhe. He lets the itch patients 

 bathe, and then for five days rubs oil of turpentine twice a day 

 into the whole body (which is superfluous according to Volz, as a 

 single rubbing is sufficient to kill the mites), bathes them again 

 on the seventh and eighth days, and eight days afterwards makes 

 them show themselves again in the hospital, and rubs them again 

 with turpentine. The itching and irritation of the skin usually 

 cease after the first two rubbings in ; the galleries are uninjured, 

 their vicinity reddened, and the mites dead. As troublesome 

 secondary cutaneous eruptions often follow, and the passages 

 never go away entirely, but only dry up, we have no positive cer- 

 tainty that a cure has been effected. At the same time the oil 

 of turpentine cannot destroy the power of development in the 



