84 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



dwell so loner on creatures so odious and nauseating, 

 whose injuries are confined to the prqfanum vulgus ? 

 Leave them therefore to the canaille — they are nothing 

 to us." Not so fast, my friend — recollect what historians 

 and other writers have recorded concerning the Phthi- 

 riasis 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 mala- 

 dies, 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 men- 

 tioned by Herodotus, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Dicta- 

 tor 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^ be- 

 cause it is not by any means certain, though some learn- 

 ed 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 va- 

 rious 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 cu- 

 rious and interesting, although no writer, that I am 

 aware of, has given it full consideration, and at the same 

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



