A caller was suffering an itchy rash, present
for a week. Three companions were also affected. That sounded good. When more
than one person has a medical problem, it’s the same problem and not serious.
In the room, all four gathered to show me
their skin which revealed the scattered, small pink pustules left by
ectoparasites. I use that term to be accurate because not every bug that bites
is an “insect.” Spiders, ticks, mites, scorpions, and centipedes aren’t.
Bedbugs (an insect) have become fashionable,
but these travelers had been moving frequently from place to place. Where
hygiene is reasonable, lice (an insect) limit themselves to hairy areas; I
didn’t see any. My diagnosis was scabies, a mite (not an insect) that burrows
under the skin. Scabies is hard to catch from clothes or bedding; mostly it
requires rubbing against someone else with scabies, and it looked like these
young people did a lot of that.
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