FROM ANIMALS TO THE HUMAN BEING. 
295 
Case II.—On the 18th of December, in the second year, 
another mangy horse was assigned for dissection to another class 
of pupils. Two of them soon began to feel considerable itching 
in the arms and wrist, and small pustules appeared on these 
parts on the same night. Dr. Latour recognized them on the 
following morning as the eruption of itch. They also, on the 
next day, found that the pimples were becoming very nume¬ 
rous on the abdomen, and bending of the knees and various 
other parts. 
They were submitted to the same treatment; but it was not 
until the 26th of January, 1838, that they were perfectly cured. 
I searched for the acarus on each of these young men, but I 
could not find it; I could not even discover the depression in 
which it is said to be lodged : yet there can be no doubt that 
the disease was produced by this insect received from the horse. 
In both cases the itching commenced in a very few minutes after 
the young men had set to work on the mangy horses. 
No author that I am aware of has treated of Dartres with 
reference to its communication from the quadruped to the biped. 
Some regard it as contagious between animals of the same spe¬ 
cies, others altogether deny its contagious property. Four 
cases, however, that have come under my notice, afford sufficient 
proof that it is contagious, not only as regards animals of their 
own species, but human beings*. 
Case III.—December the 2d, 1837, M. Fourcade, of Balina, 
brought a Gascony cow to our hospital, aged seven years, and 
accompanied by her calf, two years and a half old, which she 
was then suckling. This young animal had around its eyes, on 
its ears and cheeks, and on its withers, some grey scabs with 
well-defined borders, and beneath which were little pustulous 
pimples, from which an ichorous fluid exuded, speedily becoming 
concrete. The parts occupied by these scabs were devoid of 
hair. From these symptoms we recognized the pustulo-crusta- 
ceous (crouteuse) dartres. 
* It is difficult to explain to the English reader what the French veteri¬ 
narians understand by the term dartres. It is an inflammation of the skin, 
characterized by little red prominences {boutons'), pustular or vesicular, and 
which unite into patches of greater or less size, and of various forms, com¬ 
monly rounded, with more or less itching, and which ultimately produce a 
kind of farinaceous powder, or epidermic exfoliations, or scales, or scabs, 
and occasionally with an ichorous discharge, or even degenerating into 
ulceration. In the last case, the hair frequently comes off, and is not 
always replaced. The skin at the situation of the dartres is rough, and 
generally a little tumefied. The surfeit of the British horse, and the denu¬ 
dation of hair on the ears and eyelids of dogs, would probably be character¬ 
ized by the term dartres. —Y, 
