OF CURIOSITY. 193 



grant that they are very troublcfome to us. 

 But is therefore all care about them to be 

 given up ? by no means. On the contrary 

 we ought to contrive means to get rid of 

 them, that they may not deilroy both Us 

 and our poffefTions. This cannot be brought 

 about unlefs we know their nature •, when 

 that is known we fhall more eafily find out 

 remedies againft them''. The ufe of infects 

 has been fufficiently explained by the noble 

 Carolus de Geer, lord of the bed-chamber to 

 his majefty, in an oration which he made in 

 the academy of fciences at Stockholm. An- 

 other of my fellow-ftudents has undertaken 

 to explain what damages infedts of various 

 kinds do us, and another now is adually em- 

 ployed in ihewing what kind of infe6ts live 



c We have lately had a proof that the knowledge of the 

 nature of infeds may fometimes be ferviceable to us. The 

 fagacious Dr Wall of VVorcefler, Upon feeing the cafe of the 

 NorfoJk boy, who was cured of worms^ by taking down a 

 large quantity of white lead, and oyl, gucfTed that the cure 

 was pf rformed by the oyl, knowinjr that oyl it, fatal to worms 

 and other ii.fefts. Upon this he has fince tryed oyl in worm- 

 cafes with a r^rt'^it appearance of fuccefs, an account of which 

 i faw in a letter from him to be communicated to the Royal 

 Society. That oyl is deftruflive to worms was known to the 

 anticnts, as appears by Arifl. Vid. Hift. Anim.lib. 8. c. 2^. 



O upon 



