34 
Psyche 
[March 
TWO BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTES 
By J. G. Myers 
Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, B. W. I. 
I. The Oldest Work on Insect Anatomy 
In the first volume of Bodenheimer’s monumental his- 
tory of entomology appears the following statement (p. 
327) : “Als das alteste Werk anatomischer Insekten- 
Betrachtung gilt das Apiarium des romischen Arztes Fran- 
cesco Stelluti (1625).” 
Bodenheimer seems entirely to have overlooked the great 
anatomist, Giulio Casserio (Casserius), the successor of 
Fabricius ab Aquapendente in the Chair of Anatomy and 
Physics at Padua. 
Although, so far as we know, Casserius published no 
separate works on insect anatomy, yet his descriptions and 
dissections of cicada anatomy, printed in 1600, are so ex- 
cellent and faithful that it seems to us that his distinction 
as the first insect anatomist is indisputable. Several ac- 
counts of cicada structure appearing in the present cen- 
tury have been less accurate. The general treatise in which 
his studies are buried is entitled: De vocis auditusque or - 
ganis historia anatomice singulari fide methode ac indus- 
tria concinnata tractatibus duobus explicata ac variis iconi- 
bus aere excusis. (Ferrara, F. 2 tractatus in 1 vol. Tab. 
I-XXII et I-XII). 
II. Zooprophylaxis for Mosquitoes 
In view of the present emphasis placed by Roubaud and 
other workers on the protection from Anophelines, said to 
be afforded to man by the vicinity of domestic animals in 
large numbers, it is interesting to notice that Humboldt was 
apparently the first to remark on this and to describe an 
instance in which the theory was deliberately put into prac- 
tice. In his “Personal Narrative” (Ross trans., 1852, vol. 
II, p. 280) he says, “In the villages of the Rio Magdalena 
the Indians often invited us to stretch ourselves as they 
did on ox-skins, near the church, in the middle of the plaza 
grande, where they had had assembled all the cows in the 
neighborhood. The proximity of cattle gives some repose 
to man.” 
