ON THE CONTAGION OF ITCH OR MANGE. 345 
the men you find in it. A horse-doctor has been looked upon 
as one who has forfeited his social position, — has descended 
from an elevated stand to associate with men of low habits. 
But, thanks to this enlightened age, reforms are germinating, 
and spreading their giant influence throughout the length and 
breadth of this country; and, ere long, the American people will 
boast of their veterinary colleges. They already begin to see 
the errors of the past. Dear bought experience has taught them, 
that the treatment of disease in domestic animals involves as 
great an amount of knowledge as the practice of human medi- 
cine, and that none other than high minded, intelligent and 
merciful men should ever practise this art.’' 
Foreign Extracts. 
ON THE CONTAGION OF ITCH OR MANGE (GALE)*, 
AND ITS TREATMENT. 
By M. le Dr. H. Bourgrignon, Laureate of the Institute, Member 
of the Society of Medicine of Paris. 
(Read, at the Academy of Sciences, at their Sitting, Nov. 11, 1850.) 
On account of its contagious property, the knowledge of itch 
in man involves the study of the same affection in the lower 
animals with which man has daily intercourse. Indeed, human 
medical science, that it may attain as near as possible to the 
perfection of the exact sciences, and thus be the expression of 
the laws of health and disease, ought to consist of deductions 
from an aggregate of facts which, along the animal scale, are 
linked one to another under the twofold relation of physiology 
and pathology ; and the close dependence in which we live with 
animals often renders indispensable such knowledge of diseases 
which shorten both their days and ours. It therefore becomes 
a matter of very great consequence for us to know what animals 
with whom we are compelled to have intercourse are subject to 
mange, and, considering the acarus to be present, to demonstrate 
whether contagion be or be not possible. 
In the coursle of my first inquiries, the contagion of itch be- 
tween man and man especially commanded my attention, a sub- 
ject on which, after I had practised divers inoculations, I came 
to the following conclusions: — 
* Gale is the French word tor both itch and mange in that form in which either 
actually is, or is taken to be, genuine psora. 
