In a modern account of Scotland, written by an English gentleman, and printed in the year 1670, we find the following: “In that interval between Adam and Moses, when the Scottish Chronicle commences, the country was then baptized (and most think with the sign of the cross) by the venerable name of Scotland, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Hence came the rise and name of these present inhabitants, as their Chronicle informs us, and is not to be doubted of, from divers considerable circumstances; the plagues of Egypt being entailed upon them, that of Lice (being a judgment unrepealed) is an ample testimony, these loving animals accompanied them from Egypt, and remain with them to this day, never forsaking them (but as rats leave a house) till they tumble into their graves.”[1079]
Linnæus, seemingly very anxious to become an apologist for the Lice, gravely observes that they probably preserve
children who are troubled with them, from a variety of complaints to which they would be liable![1080]
As an attempt toward discovering the intention of Providence in permitting the frequency of these tormenting animals, the following lines of Serenus may be given:
See nature, kindly provident ordain
Her gentle stimulants to harmless pain;
Lest Man, the slave of rest, should waste away
In torpid slumber life’s important day!
Of the horrible disease, Phthiriasis, occasioned by myriads of Lice, Pediculi, and sometimes by Mites, Acari, and Larvæ in general, I shall but mention that the inhuman Pheretrina, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Dictator Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor Maximin, and Philip the Second were among the number carried off by it.
Quintus Serenus speaks thus of the death of Sylla: