44 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 odious and nauseating, 
whose injuries are confined to the profanum vulgus? 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, ov 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 judgment of God upon oppression and tyranny, whether civil or 
religious. Thus the inhuman Pheretima mentioned by Herodotus, An- 
tiochus Epiphanes, the Dictator 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, 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 con- 
cerned 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 to 
reject it if you do not find it consonant to reason and fact. The three 
kinds of insects to which I allude, as concerned in cases that have been 
deemed Phthiriasis, are lice ( Pediculi, L.), mites (Acari, L.), and Larve 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 subculaneous.— 
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 Medica 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 marvellous stories are related by Forestus, Schenkius, and 
others, respecting lice bred under the skin, and discharged in swarms front 
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 fur this great man, who however supposes (in 
1 The terms Acariasis and Scholechiasis have been applied to the diseases pro- 
duced by Acari and Larva, 
