Scabies: show me the mite !

• The cause of scabies was unknown and in the early decades of the 19th century, the mite being the cause of scabies were controversial.

• Simon François Renucci a Corsican medical student had seen native women remove mites from people with “the itch”; it amused him to see the professors of Paris in the dark.

• In 1834, at l’hôpital St. Louis, he demonstrated the existence of mite by inserting a needle and extracting it out of the burrows of a man with scabies. A few years later, in Austria, Dr Ferdinand Hebra auto-inoculated the mite and further showed this !

• To read more about scabies: https://www.globale-dermatologie.com/en/la-gale.html#.VEpVV-fbw4Y

Contributors

Dr Christophe Hsu – dermatologist. Geneva, Switzerland

Source of information:

-Crissey JT el al. Dermatology and Dermatologists (2002). Parthenon Publishing