PHTHIRUS INGUlNALiS. 187 



two Herods, and, by some, Plato, died of this disease.* In 

 more modern times, the great persecutor of the Protestants, 

 Philip II. is said to have been carried off by it ; and Amatus Lusi- 

 tanus has described two cases of Phthiriasis, one of which termi- 

 nated fatally. f From the habits of the genus Pediculus, and the 

 mode in which they are generated, it is justly remarked by Dr. 

 Willan that no credit can be given to these accounts, and that the 

 disease produced by animals residing under the cuticle must have 

 been occasioned by some other insect. 



According to Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their valuable Intro- 

 duction to Entomology, at least three different species of insects 

 have been observed to attack the human body, in the various cases 

 that have been recorded under the common name of Phthiriasis. 

 These three kinds of insects are lice, {Pediadi, L.) mites {Acari, L.) 

 and Larvce or grubs in general. 



Acari, or mites, appear to be a frequent source of disease in the 

 human body, both local and general. They are distinguished from 

 Pediculi, not only by their form, but also often by their situation, 

 since they frequently establish themselves under the cuticle. Dr. 

 Adams conjectures that Acari may be the cause of certain cases of 

 Ophthalmia ; and Sir Joseph Banks, in a letter to that gentleman, 

 relates that some seamen belonging to the Endeavour brig, being 

 tormented with a severe itching round the margin of the eyelids, 

 one of them was cured by an Otaheitan woman, who, with two 

 small splinters of bamboo, extracted from between the cilia abun- 

 dance of very minute licet Le Jcune, a French physician, quoted 

 by Mouffet,§ describes a case in which these insects infested the 

 white of the eye, exciting an intolerable itching ; and Dr. Mead, 

 in the German Ephemerides, gives an account of a woman suckling 

 a child, from whose breast proceeded very minute insects. These 

 are supposed by Mr. Kirby to have been mites, and perhaps that 

 species which, from its feeding upon milk, Linneus denominates 



* See Plutarch's Life of Sylla ; also, Pliu. Hist. Nat. lib. xxvi. cap. 13. 

 f Amat. Lusit. Conlur. iii. cur. 58. See also Forrestus, Obs. Med. lib. viii. 

 obs. 14. Joan. Schenck. Obs. Med. lib. v. obs. 2. 

 I On Morbid Poisons, 300, 307. 

 § Insectorum sive //unimorum aniviulium theatrum, p. 2(37. 



