204 CASK OF ANDREW MITCHELL. 



tril from that from which the three insects have been discharged. AH 

 the insects proceeded from the same nostril. 



August 24. 1839. Great discharge of blood, followed by much pain 

 at night. 



September 2. 1839 Painful at times, with lumpy discharge. The 

 pain has been for the most part on the left side of face until a mercurial 

 plaster was put there, when it partially shifted to the right side. " Gum- 

 hies" are felt in the head when he runs or takes any sharp exercise. 



He is supposed to find some relief from sweet-oil dropped into the ear, 

 as he frequently desires this to be done. 



On the sixth of September the boy was brought to Twizel by his 

 mother, and their statements tallied in every respect with the written ac- 

 count produced, and furnished by the Rev. Mr Perigal of EHingham. 

 The boy still continues to feel unpleasant sensations in the left side of 

 the head behind the temporal region, and he complained much this morn- 

 ing after taking some quick exercise, of pains in the head and left ear, 

 and of the " gumbles" or peculiar sensations already noticed, from which 

 symptoms, it would appear, that some larvce exist in the passages or 

 ethmoid cells. The larvae excluded, two of which I examined (and one 

 is now produced), are evidently those of a coleopterous insect, and they 

 approach very closely to the figure of that of Blaps mortisaga in West- 

 wood's Insects. Cases are upon record of vast numbers of the larvae 

 of this beetle, as well as the pupa, and, in one or two instances, the imago, 

 having been ejected from the stomach. (See Westwood, who mentions 

 one case of an Irish woman, supposed to have originated from drinking 

 daily water mixed with earth from the graves of two Roman Catholic 

 priests.) No case, however, similar to the present, or where they have 

 existed in the head or nasal passages, is mentioned. The query is, How 

 did the eggs or larvae get there ? The boy appears to be in delicate 

 health from the effects produced by these insects, as, previous to this at- 

 tack, he was quite healthy and strong. He has never felt any uneasy 

 sensation in the stomach, or any other part, the head alone having been 

 affected. P. J. S. 



P, S. Wohlfarht has written a paper with the title " De vermibus per 

 nares excretis." A scolopendra has been found in the frontal sinus, and 

 in the nostrils. Kilgour gives a case of larva in the nose destroyed by 

 infusion of tobacco. Heysham another of a larva in the antrum maxil- 

 lare. Mr Clark supposes, without sufficient reason, that in these cases 

 the larvae were those of an oestrus. See Young's Med. Literature, 

 p. 418 ; and Lin. Trans, iii, p. 323. G. J. 



