In 1687, Giovanni Cosimo Bonomo and Diacinto Cestoni published the first description of Sarcoptes scabiei, the mite responsible for scabies, identifying it as a parasite that burrows into human skin and causes the intense itching of 'the itch.' This was one of the earliest demonstrations that a specific microscopic organism was the cause of a specific disease — a precursor to germ theory. Scabies had been a scourge of populations in overcrowded and poor conditions throughout recorded history.

The itch of scabies and other skin parasites appears throughout pre-modern literature as a marker of poverty, filth, and social degradation. Shakespeare's characters refer to 'the itch' as both a physical condition and a moral metaphor. The identification of the scabies mite as a specific organism distinguished from sin or cosmic punishment was a small step in the intellectual journey toward understanding human suffering as biological rather than moral — a shift with profound implications for how poets and writers would subsequently represent disease and the body.