C. Warburton 297 
interesting, whatever the final verdict may be concerning them. They re¬ 
garded the domestic animals as the constant reservoir from which man 
renewed his supply of Sarcoptes, which would otherwise have been exter¬ 
minated by its very easy treatment. They believed that for scabies to flourish 
in any of the lower mammalia a poor condition of health was necessary, and 
that man, and perhaps monkeys, are the only exceptions to this rule. And they 
warn us repeatedly against drawing any conclusions from failure to com¬ 
municate scabies to another animal by the transference of a limited number 
of possibly injured Sarcoptes from a given host. 
In all the cases in which severe scabies has been successfully and quickly 
communicated to a different animal the first host has been in an advanced 
stage of the disease, exhibiting crusts which are swarming with the mites in 
all stages. Contagion from animals only slightly affected by scabies is always 
slow and uncertain. Human scabies (except in the form of Norwegian itch) 
is almost always relatively slight, presenting no crusts, and it is notorious 
that doctors never contract itch from their patients, and that even when 
a man has become infected from occupying the bed of a scabietic person 
weeks may elapse before he becomes aware of the fact. Again it very often 
happens in these experiments that the transference is successful for a time 
but that the disease presently dies out. The possible explanation that the 
recipient host is in a condition of health unfavourable to the establishment 
of the disease must not be lost sight of. It was not till the bear and the 
hyaena in the Menagerie Pianet had greatly lost condition from other causes, 
that they contracted scabies from the mangy lions, and many parallel cases 
have been recorded. 
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The papers marked by an asterisk (*) have been consulted in the original. 
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*Banks (1904). Treatise on the Acarina. Washington. 
*Berlese (1913, a). Gli Insetti , n. 
* - (1913, b). Acarotheca italica. 
Besner and Megnin (1892). Gale 6quine chez l’homme. Soc. de Dermatologie, May 13 
1892. . ' 
Bieler (1892). Reeueil de Med. V6t. y p. 511. 
Biett (1836). Dictionnaire de Mddecine. 2nd ed. Art. “Gale.” Paris. 
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* (1852). Traits entomologique et pathologique de la gale de Vhomme. Paris. 
*Brumpt, E. (1910). Precis de Parasitologie. Paris. 
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