Arab physician, Ibn Zuhr is believed to have been the first to provide a clinical description of the scabies mites.The Roman encyclopedist and medical writer Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c. 25 BC – 50 AD) is credited with naming the disease "scabies" and describing its characteristic features. The parasitic etiology of scabies was documented by the Italian physician Giovanni Cosimo Bonomo (1663–1696) in his 1687 letter, "Observations concerning the fleshworms of the human body". Bonomos description established scabies as one of the first human diseases with a well-understood cause.In Europe in the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, a sulfur-bearing ointment called by the medical eponym of Wilkinsons ointment was widely used for topical treatment of scabies. The contents and origins of several versions of the ointment were detailed in correspondence published in the British Medical Journal in 1945. Society and culture
The International Alliance for the Control of Scabies was started in 2012, and brings together over 150 researchers, clinicians, and public-health experts from more than 15 countries. It has managed to bring the global health implications of scabies to the attention of the World Health Organization. Consequently, the WHO has included scabies on its official list of neglected tropical diseases and other neglected conditions. Scabies in animals
Scabies may occur in a number of domestic and wild animals; the mites that cause these infestations are of different subspecies from the one typically causing the human form. These subspecies can infest animals that are not their usual hosts, but such infections do not last long.
These signs are often found in crevices of the body, such as on the webs of fingers and toes, around the genital area, in stomach folds of the skin, and under the breasts.Symptoms typically appear two to six weeks after infestation for individuals never before exposed to scabies. For those having been previously exposed, the symptoms can appear within several days after infestation. However, symptoms may appear after several months or years. Crusted scabies
The elderly, disabled, and people with impaired immune systems, such as those with HIV/AIDS, cancer, or those on immunosuppressive medications, are susceptible to crusted scabies (also called Norwegian scabies). On those with weaker immune systems, the host becomes a more fertile breeding ground for the mites, which spread over the hosts body, except the face. The mites in crusted scabies are not more virulent than in noncrusted scabies; however, they are much more numerous (up to two million). People with crusted scabies exhibit scaly rashes, slight itching, and thick crusts of skin that contain large numbers of scabies mites. For this reason, persons with crusted scabies are more contagious to others than those with typical scabies. Such areas make eradication of mites particularly difficult, as the crusts protect the mites from topical miticides/scabicides, necessitating prolonged treatment of these areas. Cause
Scabies mite
In the 18th century, Italian biologists Giovanni Cosimo Bonomo and Diacinto Cestoni (1637–1718) described the mite now called Sarcoptes scabiei, variety hominis, as the cause of scabies.