INSECTA
In this tab, titled Insecta , there are various articles grouped into three fundamental chapters, "Description of Insects", "Lobster Pests" and "Diseases transmitted by insects". All of them have their origin in two works already published, Bands, swarms and devastation (Almuzara, 2007) and I nsects and Hecatombs , vol. I-II (RBa, 2012-2014). The intention is to offer the reader the possibility of consulting the contents free of charge and making it possible to increase their knowledge thanks to their individual contributions.
The description of insects is based on the historical and biological study of locusts, fleas, lice, mosquitoes, flies and bedbugs, since all of them have had, and continue to have, a negative influence on man. There is also a chapter on ticks, although they are not insects.
Lobster plagues have threatened man since the Neolithic Age, when he learned the rudiments of agriculture and settled in a permanent place, becoming sedentary. A swarm of migrating locusts can harbor billions of individuals that do not respect the balance of nature and destroy the existing plant mass in their wake, completely breaking the food chain and exposing the living beings that depend on it to certain death. by starvation. Man has witnessed, century after century, these enormous catastrophes that appear and disappear suddenly.
Fleas, lice, mosquitoes, flies or bed bugs have existed on Earth for millions of years and have parasitized man since the beginning of its existence. Despite their miniscule size, ancient authors have already described them accurately, although only after the discovery of the microscope in the 17th century was it possible to observe them with great detail and precision.
This work aims to be a natural history of these obligate parasites, of the diseases caused by their associated pathogens and of the impact they have had on man over the centuries. And it should be taken into account that, despite great scientific advances, today many insects continue to cause many serious diseases in humans, around a hundred, among which are plague, epidemic typhus, malaria, yellow fever, dengue, leishmaniasis , filariasis, sleeping sickness or Chagas disease. The formal and expanded presentation of these works can be found in the prologues of each one of them.
