DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 01 



Is not a doctrine peculiar to the moderns. Mouffet men- 

 tions Abinzoar, called also Avenzoar, a celebrated His- 

 pano- Arabian physician of Seville, who flourished in the 

 twelfth century, as the most ancient author that notices 

 it. He calls these Acari little lice that creep under the 

 skin of the hands, legs, and feet, exciting pustules full of 

 fluid a . Joubert, quoted by the same author, describes 

 them under the name of Sirones or mites, as always being 

 concealed beneath the epidermis, under which they creep 

 like moles, gnawing it, and causing a most troublesome 

 itching. It appears that Mouffet, or whoever was the 

 author of that part of the Thcatrum Insectorum, was him- 

 self also well acquainted with these animals, since he re- 

 marks that their habitation is not in the pustule but near 

 it : a remark afterwards confirmed by Linne b , and more 

 recently by Dr. Adams c . In common with the former 

 of these authors, Mouffet further notices the effect of 

 warmth upon them in exciting motion d . Our intelligent 

 countryman also observes that they cannot be Pediculi, 

 since they live under the cuticle, which lice never do e . 

 In the epistle dedicatory, the editor speaks also of these 

 Acari as living in burrows which they have excavated in 

 the skin near a lake of water ; from which if they be ex- 



a Mouffet, 266\ 



b Acarus sub ipsa pustula minime quasrendus est, sed longius re- 

 eessit, sequendo rugam euticulas observatur. Amcen. Ac. v. Do. not.**. 



c Observations, &c. .296. 



" Extractus acu ct super ungue positus, movet se si solis etiain ca- 

 lore adjuvetur. ttbi s^))-. Ungui impositus vix movetur : si vera oris 

 calido halitu affletur, agilis in ungue cursitat. Fn. Suec. 19/5. 



e Neque Syrones isti sunt de pediculorum gencre, ut Johannes 

 Langius ex Aristotele videtur asserere : nam illi extra cutera vivunt, 

 hi vero non. ubi supr. 



