Russell W. Currier, past president of the American Veterinary Medical History Society will speak on:

“2,000 Year History of Scabies:  From Humoral Beliefs to Contagion to Modern Understanding”

Thursday, October 24, 2013, 5:30-6:30
Room 401
Univ. of Iowa Hardin Library for the Health Sciences

The transition from Hippocrates’ humors and Galenic dogma to microscopic causes of illness was a long and distressing experience delaying for centuries the concept of contagion.  Manifestations of scabies infestations were attributed erroneously to systemic phenomena, even digestive disorders. This lecture will present a 2,000 year review of this  wholly human parasite that spread in ‘deep time’ to numerous animal species as variant subspecies.