C. Warburton 
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Wichmann 1 published his Aetiologie der Krdtze, giving an excellent account 
of scabies and its cause, supported by several new observations. Then sundry 
writers (Pinel on the medical side and Latreille on the entomological side) took 
up a discussion on the systematic position of the mite, trusting to the figures 
of Cestoni and De Geer. Latreille founded the genus Sarcoptes in 1806. 
The history of the subject during the early years of the 19th century is 
most curious. Various medical writers (Alibert, 1833; Biett, 1836; and others), 
overlooking Moffett’s observation and examining only the vesicles and 
pustules, declared that they were quite unable to find the mite in numerous 
undoubted cases of scabies. Gales, indeed, described and figured (1812) a 
mite which he said inhabited the pustules, but others could not find it, and 
by many this re-disccvery was regarded as an imposture, and in 1821 
Mouronval published a volume to prove that it did not exist! 
Meanwhile Walz (1809) had been investigating sheep scabies, and de 
St Didier (1813) and Gohier (1816) had studied horse scabies, but the 
doctors remained ignorant of the work done by the veterinarians. 
Then Raspail attempted a revision of the whole matter as regards human 
scabies, and his statement that the mite found by Gales was the cheese mite, 
aroused great interest, and all concerned became eager to have the matter 
settled once for all. At this time Francis Renucci, a Corsican, accustomed 
from his infancy to the “chasse aux sarcoptes,” was studying medicine in 
Paris, and had no difficulty at all in proving the existence of the mite. This 
re-discovery was communicated to Raspail who published (1834) a Memoire 
comparatij sur Vhistoire de Vinsecte de la Gale, which, however, contained many 
errors. In the same year Albin Gras published a much better account of the 
Sarcoptes, and in 1835 Renucci himself presented his thesis for the doctorate 
with figures of the Sarcoptes of man, the horse, the sheep and the cat, and 
also a figure of the cheese mite. 
This was the condition of things when in 1843 Bourguignon, who was 
at the Veterinary College at Alfort under Prof. Delafond, undertook his 
admirable study of human scabies. He handed in his Traite entomologique 
in 1846, but it was not published till 1852. Meanwhile Hebra was at work 
in Vienna, and Eichstedt in Germany. Bourguignon does not seem to have 
known of Eichstedt’s work, which included a remarkably fine study of the 
galleries of Sarcoptes, the arrangement of the eggs in them, the phenomena 
of moulting etc., but he had some acquaintance with Hebra’s investigations, 
and questions of priority arose in 1845 between Hebra and Bourguignon. Of 
this period also is the work by Gurlt and Hertwig on human scabies (1844). 
The nature and cause of scabies was now firmly established and generally 
admitted, but there was much to be discovered, and a large number of students 
were attracted to a field in which so much interest had been aroused. Scabies 
1 According to Raspail, Wichmann’s treatise is a little 12mo. volume sometimes to be found 
bound up with a treatise by Guldner on the Prague workhouse. This is the second edition, 
published 1791. 
