Many of the patients seen at my office during the summer months are brought to me because they have had bites or stings due to spiders,1 ticks, bees, wasps, fleas, mosquitoes, or chiggers. The exposure of children in this county to these pests has been increased in recent years because many families spend part of the summer "at the river."
The chigger, or red bug, probably produces more local misery for its size than any of the others listed above. Chiggers are the larvae of the trombiculid mites. They are extremely small red parasites, but can be seen by the naked eye. The larvae are the six-legged stage of a complex series of metamorphoses described in Dr. G. W. Wharton's monograph.2
Disease transmitted by mites has not been recognized in any of my patients, and the reason medical advice was sought was because of the dermatitis or local