Editing Formication (section)

==History==
Formication is etymologically derived from the [[Latin]] word ''formica'', meaning "[[ant]]", precisely because of this similarity in sensation to that of crawling insects. The term has been in use for several hundred years.  In the 1797 edition of the [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], a description of the condition [[wikt:raphania|raphania]] includes the symptom:

{{quote|...a formication, or sensation as of ants or other small insects creeping on the parts.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=fIJMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA260&dq=formication Encyclopædia Britannica], 1797, p. 260</ref>}}

Described again in an instructional text from 1890:
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A variety of itching, often encountered in the eczema of elderly people, is formication; this is described as exactly like the crawling of myriads of animals over the skin. It is probably due to the successive irritation of nerve fibrils in the skin. At times patients who suffer from it will scarcely be persuaded that it is not due to insects. Yielding to the temptation to scratch invariably makes the disease worse.<ref>Jamieson, William Allan (1894) [https://books.google.com/books?id=EeJnxmKxH0gC ''Diseases of the Skin: A Manual for Practitioners and Students'']. Pentland</ref>
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