Phthiriasis: The Riddle of the Lousy Disease

Of all the legendary and fantastic diseases of ancient times, phthiriasis, or the lousy (lisease, wvas the most intriguing and bizarre. In the corrupted humours of the sufferers of this disease, lice were believed to develop by spontaneous generation, and tumours full of these insects rose on the skin. When such a louse tumour burst or was incised, a stream of insects swarmed out. The flesh of the sufferer wvas slowly caten away and transubstantiated into lice, and he perished miserably in this 'most horrible of diseases'. Another singular charactcristic for phthiriasis was that it was firmly believed to be a divine punishment to tv,rants, desecrators and enemics of religion.