An “itchy issue”: Roman veterinarians in the fight against external parasites

Ancient Romans struggled with manifold diseases affecting their animals, including the ones caused by external parasites. Among numerous parasitic diseases scabies was the most commonly diagnosed one — on the one hand, it caused serious economic losses to breeders, on the other hand, it was threatening to humans. Due to high contangeousness of scabies and big losses it caused, the breeders and veterinarians designed numerous treatments that were to prevent the occurrence of or eradicate the disease. Majority of extant ancient texts contained recipes for medicines administered to horses, cattle, and sheep. What captures our attention are considerable varieties of medicines applicable to particular species, which points to significant level of specialization and attempts to adjust treatments to specific needs of particular species of animals. A proportion of ancient recommendations and methods of fighting scabies remains valid until the present day