44 . DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



country, parasites upon the human body. But already I seem to hear 

 you exclaim, " Why dwell so long on creatures so odious and nauseating, 

 whose injuries are confined to the profanum vulgus ? Leave them there- 

 fore to the canaille they are nothing to us." Not so fast, my friend 

 recollect what historians and other writers have recorded concerning the 

 Phthiriasis, or pedicular disease; and you must own that, for the quelling 

 of human pride, and to pull down the high conceits of mortal man, this 

 most loathsome of all maladies, or one equally disgusting, has been the 

 inheritance of the rich, the wise, the noble, and the mighty ; and in the 

 list of those that have fallen victims to it, you will find poets,' philosophers, 

 prelates, princes, kings, and emperors. It seems more particularly to have 

 been a judgment of God upon oppression and tyranny, whether civil or 

 religious. Thus the inhuman Pheretima mentioned by Herodotus, An- 

 tiochus Epiphanes, the Dictator Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor 

 Maximin, and, not to mention more, the great persecutor of the Pro- 

 testants, Philip the Second, were carried off by it. 



I say by this malady, or one equally disgusting, because it is not by any 

 means certain, though some learned men have so supposed, that all these 

 instances, and others of a similar nature, standing also upon record, are to 

 be referred to the same specific cause ; since there is very sufficient reason 

 for thinking that at least three different descriptions of insects are con- 

 cerned in the various cases that have been handed down to us under the 

 common name of Phthiriasis. As the subject of maladies connected with 

 insects or produced by them, is both curious and interesting, although no 

 writer, that I am aware of, has given a full consideration, and at the same 

 time falls in with my general design, I hope you will not regard me as 

 guilty of presumption, and of intruding into the province of medical men, 

 if I enter rather largely into it, and state to you the reasons that have 

 induced me to embrace the above hypothesis, leaving you full liberty to 

 reject it if you do not find it consonant to reason and fact. The three 

 kinds of insects to which I allude, as concerned in cases that have been 

 deemed Phthiriasis, are lice (Pediculi, L.), mites (Acari, L.), and Larvce in 

 general. 1 



As far as the habits of the genus Pediculus, whether inhabiting man or 

 the inferior animals, are at present known, it does not appear from any 

 well-ascertained fact, that the species belonging to it are ever subcutaneous. 

 For this observation, as far as it relates to man, I can produce the highest 

 medical authority. " The louse feeds on the surface of the skin," says 

 the learned Dr. Mead in his Mcdica Sacra ; and Dr. Willan, in his palmary 

 work on Cutaneous Diseases, remarks with respect to the body-louse, " that 

 the nits, or eggs, are deposited on the small hairs of the skin," and that 

 " the animals are found on the skin or on the linen, and not under the 

 cuticle, as some authors have represented." And he further observes, 

 that " many marvellous stories are related by Forestus, Schenkius, and 

 others, respecting lice bred under the skin, and discharged in swarms from 

 abscesses, strumous ulcers, and vesications. The mode in which Pediculi 

 are generated being now so well ascertained, no credit can be given to 

 these accounts." Thus far this great man, who however supposes (in 



The terms Acariasis and Scholechiasis have been applied to the diseases pro- 

 duced by Acari and Larvce. 



