80 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 (^ious and nauseating, 

 whose injuries are confined to the profanum vulgus 7 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 judgement of God upon oppression and tyranny, whether civil 

 or religious. Thus the inhuman Pheretima mentioned by Herodotus, 

 Antiochus Epiphanes, the Dictator Sylla, the two Herods, the emperor 

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

 ants, 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 

 concerned 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 1 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 

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

 kinds of insects to which 1 allude, as concerned in cases that have been 

 deemed Phthiriasis, are lice (Pcdiculi, L.) mites {Acari, L.), and Larva 

 in general.^ 



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 subcutane- 

 ous. 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 Medicn 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 marvelous stories are related by Foreslus, Schen- 

 kius, 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 



> The terms Acariasis and Scolechiasis have been applied to the diseases produced by 

 Acari and Larva. 



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