A

CHAPTER XXVI.

PARASITIC INVASIONS OF THE SCALP, HAIR, AND BODY.

NY cutaneous affection is necessarily aggravated by the presence of hair on the area involved. We can cite such

a case, even when a large boil, occurring under the chin, amidst the thickest of the growth of a dense beard, was especially troublesome on account of its occupying that locality. There are, however, affections of the skin which are distinctively associated with localities where there is a growth of hair, and one affection, eczema, or tetter, to which there is marked liability as a consequence of some depraved condition of the hairproducing functions. When tinea or seborrhoea are the diseases concerned, they, although having a wider range than merely attacking the hair-producing apparatus, may be distinctively discases of the scalp and other hairy portions of the body.

Tinea sycosis, or barber's itch, is a vegetable parasitic affection, to which only members of the male sex are liable, because it attacks only the bearded parts of the face and neck. Tinea circinata, or ringworm of the body, caused by the same vegetable parasite, does not by predilection attack hairy surfaces. When it spreads to them from other parts that have been attacked, the affection is known as tinea tonsurans, or hairdenuding tinea, and the disease becomes modified in character.

Tinea favosa, crusted, or honey-comb ringworm, is derived from another vegetable parasite. It may be circumscribed to one locality, and may invade the whole body.

One form of tinea, alluded to in a preceding chapter, attacks the nails. The disease in its various forms is very contagious. Ringworm of the scalp sometimes runs through a large school from the contagion of a single pupil.

Seborrhoea capitis, or degeneration of the sebaceous appa ratus of the scalp, results in an oily exudation poured out on the head and mixed with scales of scarf-skin, forming unsightly and disgusting crusts on the head. As seborrhea is a disease of the sebaceous glands, it may occur on any part of the body, and in rare cases has involved the whole of it.

Eczema capitis, or eczema of the scalp, may be a primary or a secondary disease of the scalp. As already indicated, it may be brought about by irritation of the scalp from some other disease.

With this brief mention of facts related to some diseases of the scalp, we must stop. It would be preposterous, even if it were right, for us to attempt to present even the briefest outline of such diseases and the treatment applicable to them. As a regular physician, we are opposed to the laity's attempting to treat themselves medically. We therefore conclude this branch of our subject by recommending that, for any cutaneous affection, recourse should be had to a good physician. Neglected diseases of the skin make firm lodgment. The skin acquires the habit of the disease, and through it the body becomes systemically affected. Frequently, the trouble is centred in the trophic system, and constitutional as well as local treatment for the affection is indicated, neither of which offices can any one but a physician rationally prescribe.

We will now pass from the consideration of vegetable to that of animal parasites.

It is a singular fact in the natural history of man, or rather of woman, that woman bears better the reality of a disagreeable thing than hearing mention of it. In our travels we have never met an exception to the rule, that the landlady who says that she never had a bed-bug in the house has plenty of them; nor of the converse rule, that if the landlady judges that it is within the bounds of possibility that she might have such a visitation

she is among the least likely of human beings to suffer from the pest. One kind of woman expects no special immunity that her equally worthy neighbors cannot enjoy; the other takes it for granted that all will go well of itself in this best of all possible worlds. One searches, and finds, if there be aught to find, and, finding or not finding, rests in blessed contentment that for some time to come nothing can be found. The other searches not, but lays the sweet unction to her soul that she is not as other women are, but lives under a special Providence. When we once saw a dame so well-assured, descanting on the natural immaculateness of her house, while all the time the very insect, witness for the plaintiff, was crawling, in plain sight to everybody else, along the edge of her spring-bonnet, we could heartily exclaim with Puck, "What fools these mortals be!" Weismann mentions, in one of the appendices to his work "On Heredity," by way of illustrating the tenacity of the life of bed-bugs, that "they can endure starvation for an astonishingly long period, and can survive the most intense cold. Leunis ("Zoologie," p. 659) mentions the case of a female which was shut up in a box and forgotten; after six months' starvation it was found, not only alive, but surrounded by a circle of lively young ones. Göze found bugs in the hangings of an old bed which had not been used for six years; they appeared like white paper.' I have myself observed a similar case, in which the starving animals were quite transparent."

Anywhere, at any time, however innocent we may be of neglect, we may have parasites brought to us abroad, or introduced into our very domiciles. Horrible to us as may be the thought, the horror of it can serve no good purpose but to put us on our guard and keep us ever on the alert to repel invasion. The contamination may be received in public indoorplaces, in hacks, in cars, or may enter our houses in freshlylaundried clothes. We knew a gentleman who, once taking a

berth in a dirty schooner, in lieu of the state-room which he had expected to have aboard of a steamboat which broke her shaft, found the next morning that his person had been disagreeably invaded. It is by recognizing, no matter who we are, that we belong to the mass of humanity, and that, take what pains we will, we are still liable to its ills, that we incur through life the fewest of them.

Scabies, or the itch, comes from an animal parasite, called acarus scabiei. Even the great Napoleon once contracted this disease from grasping the rammer of a cannoneer who was suffering from the affection. During the late war it was very prevalent in places, from the inevitable massing of men at times in crowded quarters, amidst unhygienic surroundings.

There are three species of lice with which the human body is liable to be infested. These are, pediculus capitis (the headlouse); pediculus corporis (the body-louse); and pediculus pubis (the louse of the pubic regions).

The pediculus capitis is found frequently among unclean and badly-nourished children, whence it may extend its inroads to children of a very different condition. Uncleanliness among certain classes, even when the presence of the parasite is not indicative of a low tone of the system, amounting to disease, is a prolific source of contamination. Mothers, therefore, introducing into their families nurse-girls who have come from inferior surroundings, would do well always to see to their condition and personal habits.

The pediculus corporis is to be found chiefly on those persons who are of habitually unclean habits, or who have no opportunity, through being herded together as prisoners or slaves, to follow their natural habits of cleanliness.

The pediculus pubis (otherwise called the crab-louse) is much larger than either of the species mentioned, and is sometimes communicated in the manner already incidentally noted.

The treatment of these affections naturally begins by getting rid of the parasites and their eggs, or nits, as they are usually called. They have sometimes, before this can be accomplished, poisoned the skin to so great a degree as to originate cutaneous disorders.

Added to the use of the comb for removing the parasites, the following substances are usefully employed for the same pur-, pose: Naphthol, mercurial ointment, tobacco, cocculus-indicus, staphisagria, sabadilla, pyrethrum, carbolic acid, and sulphur. These can be procured in the form of powders, lotions, and ointments, and some in that of soaps. Naphthol and corrosivesublimate soaps are well adapted to the cleanly removal of the parasites. Pure naphthol and pure kerosene are too inflammable and malodorous to be recommended as applications. If used, they should be rendered less dangerous, and less offensive to the smell, by mixing with them some olive-oil. Soda, borax, vinegar, alcohol, and dilute acetic acid are useful for destroying the nits.

As, apart from an invasion of these parasites, a low tone of the system, induced by poor and insufficient diet, bad ventilation, and other unhygienic conditions, is provocative of their onset, constituting under the circumstances a true disease, it is necessary in such cases that the sufferer should be invigorated by tonics, at the same time that all depressant influences are removed.

If eczema, or tetter, has supervened from the attacks of the pediculus capitis, it should be treated by a physician. In our own medical work on diseases of the skin we have given much instruction and many prescriptions for the treatment of these parasitic affections when they amount to a disease, but as they are, as we indicated at the beginning, of sufficient importance to require the direct advice of a physician, there would be no object in setting down here discussions and prescriptions relating to them, and intended only for the eye of the medical practitioner.