SARCOPTIC SCABIES IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 
A CRITICAL SURVEY OF OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE REGARDING 
THE ACARI CONCERNED 1 . 
By CECIL WARBURTON, M.A., F.Z.S., 
Demonstrator in Medical Entomology, etc., in the University of Cambridge. 
(From the Quick Laboratory, Cambridge.) 
(With Plate XV and 10 Text-figures.) 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Introduction ....... 265 
Historical ....... 266 
Classification and Morphology of the Sarcoptinae 269 
Description of Sarcoptes scabiei de Geer . . 272 
Life-history of the Sarcoptes of man . . . 276 
Sarcoptinae parasitic on other animals . . 278 
Notoedres Railliet 1893 ..... 290 
Cnemidocoptes Fiirstenberg 1870 . . . 292 
Conclusions ....... 294 
References ....... 297 
Description of Plate XV ..... 300 
INTRODUCTION. 
Sarcoptic scabies in man and in domestic and wild mammals has engaged 
the attention of a large number of investigators since its true nature was 
finally established about the year 1835. The subject has been approached 
from the medical, the veterinary and the entomological side, and the literature 
concerning it has attained very large dimensions. Nevertheless it cannot be 
said that our knowledge of the matter is in a satisfactory condition, since no 
two writers agree entirely in their accounts of the morphology and bionomics 
of the human itch-mite, and the most diverse views are held as to the inter¬ 
relation of the forms which infest man and the lower animals. 
Munro (1919) goes so far as to say that “no satisfactory description of 
any of the members of the genus Sarcoptes has yet been given.” If this be 
so it is not for want of patient investigation by a number of scientific men 
exceedingly well equipped for the task, but the creatures concerned are so 
small and so slightly chitinised, and the minute differences between them are 
m 
1 Work done with the aid of a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. 
