50 ANIMAL PARASITES 



We seem, perhaps, very precise and prosy in 

 all this ; but, during and since the war, so much 

 scabies has been diflfused through our country, 

 that many family physicians are called upon to 

 treat what they have never before seen, and their 

 want of immediate success should not tell against 

 them. "We only desire the community and phy- 

 sicians to understand that the Jackson Itch, the 

 Seven-years' Itch, and the Army Itch, all are due 

 to the presence in the skin of one and the same 

 animal, namely, the acarus scabiei, or sarcoptes 

 hominis, the itch-mite depicted at the commence- 

 ment of this article. 



How now, finally, can we get rid of our minute, 

 insinuating, and irritating friends? They lie 

 stored away beneath the hard layer of the scarf- 

 skin ; this, therefore, must be removed, in order 

 to expose them; then something fatal to them, 

 but not hurtful to the skin, must be brought in 

 contact with them, and finally the excoriations and 

 'eruptions caused by the constant scratching must 

 be properly treated. The severity of these latter 

 symptoms depend, of course, on the length of 

 time the person has been afiected ; that is to say, 

 upon the number of itch-mites which are commit- 



