It is to these species that a case of dysentery was referred. Rolander, who studied under Linnæus, was attacked by what was called dysentery. The complaint soon gave way to treatment, but eight days after it returned, soon disappeared, but again came a third time. All the time Rolander had been living like the other inmates of the house, who all escaped. Linnæus, aware that Bartholemy had attributed dysentery to insects which he said he had seen, advised his student to examine his stool. The result was that innumerable mites were found to be present. Their presence was easily accounted for by the fact that they were found in numbers in a cup made of juniper wood from which the student alone drank of a night, and they were found to be of the same species. What this species is we do not know. Linnæus called it Acarus dysenteriæ, but it was the same as his Acarus siro. No records have occurred since. It cannot be, as Latreille supposed, the cheese mite, for they have been eaten by millions since, and it is strange no such case has occurred again.
[Tyroglyphus minor var. Castellani, Hirst,
causes the copra itch in persons employed in the copra mills in Ceylon. The skin of the hands, arms, legs and even body becomes covered with pruriginous papules, papulo-pustules and pustules near the head. The eruption begins as a rule on the hands. The mites live in the copra dust. They produce dermatitis. Castellani produced the disease experimentally by rubbing copra dust containing mites on the skin of healthy people. Beta-naphthol ointment (5 to 10 per cent.) proved useful in treatment (Journ. Trop. Med. and Hyg., December 16, 1912, Castellani and Hirst).—F. V. T.]
Genus. Glyciphagus, Hering, 1838.
Glyciphagus prunorum, Her., and G. domesticus, de Geer.
The Glyciphagi are differentiated from the Tyroglyphi in that the chitinous hairs on the body are fringed or feathered, and that they lack a furrow dividing the cephalothorax from the abdomen. They live under similar conditions to the Tyroglyphi and are occasionally found on man or in fæces.
[Sugar merchants and grocers are frequently troubled by swarms of G. domesticus, which leave the stores when being handled, and especially shopmen, who handle sugar kept in small stores for some time. These are the Acari that cause that irritating temporary affection known as “grocer’s itch.”—F. V. T.]
Glyciphagus cursor, Gervais.
Under this name Signor Moriggia figures a horny excrescence of great length growing from a woman’s hand, and containing in its cavities quantities of Acarus. This species is really G. domesticus, de Geer. G. domesticus has also been described by Gervais (Ann. Sci. Nat., 1841, ser. 2, xv, p. 8) as G. hippopodes.
Glyciphagus buski, Murray.[350]