52 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
probably meant the same thing. The proper appellation of this genus of 
diseases would be Scolechiasis.* 
This dissertation may perhaps appear to you rather prolix and tedious ; 
yet to settle the meaning of terms is of the first importance. To inquire 
what ancient writers intended by the words which they employ, and 
whether such as have been usually regarded as synonymous are really so, 
may often furnish us with a clue to some useful or interesting truth; and 
not seldom enable us to rescue their reputation from much of the censure 
which has been inconsiderately cast upon it. Because they did not know 
everything, or so much as we do, we are too apt to think that they knew 
nothing. ‘That they fell into very considerable errors, especially in subjects 
connected with Natural History, cannot be denied; but then it ought to 
be considered that they possessed scarcely any of those advantages by 
which we are enabled to penetrate into nature’s secrets. The want of the 
microscope alone was an effectual bar to their progress in this branch of 
science. Yet, in some instances, when they took a general view of a sub- 
_ject, they appear to have had very correct ideas. This observation parti- 
cularly applies to the philosopher of Stagira, whose mighty mind and 
lyncean eye, in spite of those mists of prejudice and fable that enveloped 
tne age in which he lived, enabled him in part to pierce through the gloom, 
and comprehend and behold the fair outline that gives symmetry, grace, 
and beauty to the whole of nature’s form, though he mistook, or was not 
able to trace out, her less prominent features and minor lineaments. 
{ Tt is now time to return from this long digression, which, however, is 
‘closely connected with the subject of this letter, to the point from which 
T deviated. Taking my leave of the disgusting animals which gave rise to 
it, I proceed to call your attention to another of our pigmy tormentors 
(Pulex irritans), which, in the opinion of some, seems to have been re- 
| garded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. ‘ Dear miss,” said 
ta lively old lady to a friend of mine (who had the misfortune to be con- 
| fined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining that the fleas tor- 
»mented ker), don’t you like fleas? Well, I think they are the prettiest 
)Jittle merry things in the world.—lI never saw a dull flea in all my life.” 
| The celebrated Willoughby kept a favourite flea, which used at stated times 
' to be admitted to suck the palm of his hand ; and enjoyed this privilege 
' for three months, when the cold killed it. And Dr. Townson, from the 
| encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vaulters, as sup- 
| plying the place of an alarum and driving us trom the bed of sloth, should 
|-seem to have regarded them with feelings much more complacent than 
'-those of Dr. Clarke and his friends, when their hopes of passing “ one 
night free from the attacks of vermin” were changed into despair by the 
information of the laughing Sheik, that “the king of the fleas held his 
‘court at Tiberias :’ or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, who found 
' them more tormenting than all the other plagues of the Missouri country, 
| where they sometimes compel even the natives to shift their quarters. If 
| you unhappily view them even in this unfavourable light, and have found 
ordinary methods unavailing for ridding yourself of these unbidden guests, 
Lcan furnish you with a probatum est recipe, which the first-meationed 
traveller tells us the Hungarian shepherds (who seem to haye been 
1 See Memoir by the Rev. F. W. Hope, containing a great number of cases of 
Scolechiasis, in the 2nd volume of the Zrans, of the Lint. Soc. of London. 
