52 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



probably meant the same thing. The proper appellation of this genus of 

 diseases would be Scolechiasis. 1 



This dissertation may perhaps appear to you rather prolix and tedious ; 

 yet to settle the meaning of terms is of the first importance. To inquire 

 what ancient writers intended by the words which they employ, and 

 whether such as have been usually regarded as synonymous are really so, 

 may often furnish us with a clue to some useful or interesting truth ; and 

 not seldom enable us to rescue their reputation from much of the censure 

 which has been inconsiderately cast upon it. Because they did not know 

 everything, or so much as we do, we are too apt to think that they knew 

 nothing. That they fell into very considerable errors, especially in subjects 

 connected with Natural History, cannot be denied ; but then it ought to 

 be considered that they possessed scarcely any of those advantages by 

 which we are enabled to penetrate into nature's secrets. The want of the 

 microscope alone was an effectual bar to their progress in this branch of 

 science. Yet, in some instances, when they took a general view of a sub- 

 ject, they appear to have had very correct ideas. This observation parti- 

 cularly applies to the philosopher of Stagira, whose mighty mind and 

 lyncean eye, in spite of those mists of prejudice and fable that enveloped 

 the age in which he lived, enabled him in part to pierce through the gloom, 

 and comprehend and behold the fair outline that gives symmetry, grace, 

 and beauty to the whole of nature's form, though he mistook, or was not 

 able to trace out, her less prominent features and minor lineaments. 



It is now time to return from this long digression, which, however, is 

 closely connected with the subject of this letter, to the point from which 

 I deviated. Taking my leave of the disgusting animals which gave rise to 

 it, I proceed to call your attention to another of our pigmy tormentors 

 (Pulex irritans), which, in the opinion of some, seems to have been re- 

 garded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. " Dear mi.ss," said 

 a lively old lady to a friend of mine (who had the misfortune to be con- 

 fined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining that the fleas tor- 

 mented her), don't you Yike fleas? Well, I think they are the prettiest 

 little merry things in the world. 1 never saw a dull flea in all my life." 

 The celebrated "Willoughby kept a favourite flea, which used at stated times 

 to be admitted to suck the palm of his hand ; and enjoyed this privilege 

 for three months, when the cold killed it. And Dr. Townson, from the 

 encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vaulters, as sup- 

 plying the place of an alarum and driving us from the bed of sloth, should 

 seem to have regarded them with feelings much more complacent than 

 those of Dr. Clarke and his friends, when their hopes of passing " one 

 night free from the attacks of vermin" were changed into despair by the 

 information of the laughing Sheik, that " the king of the fleas held his 

 court at Tiberias :" or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, who found 

 them more tormenting than all the other plagues of the Missouri country, 

 where they sometimes compel even the natives to shift their quarters. If 

 you unhappily view them even in this unfavourable light, and have found 

 ordinary methods unavailing for ridding yourself of these unbidden guests, 

 I can furnish you with a probatum est recipe, which the first-mentioned 

 traveller tells us the Hungarian shepherds (who seem to have been 



1 See Memoir by the Eev. F. W. Hope, containing a great number of cases of 

 Scolechiasis, in the 2nd volume of the Trans, of the Ent. Soc. of London. 



