CENTIPEDES 53 



about twenty minutes. A swollen, tender and mildly painful con- 

 dition persisted for about three weeks. The only authentic case re- 

 corded in the literature in which a centipede bite was fatal to a 

 human is that of a seven year old child in the Philippines who was 

 bitten on the head and died twenty-nine hours later. Bucherl 

 (1946) has published the results of experiments with the five com- 

 monest and largest Brazilian Chilopods and has included a morpho- 

 logical and histological study of the poison apparatus. Having 

 experimented with mice, guinea-pigs and pigeons injected with 

 solutions of the venom at varying concentrations, he reached the 

 conclusion that the poison of even the largest of the Brazilian 

 species was too feeble ever to endanger the life of man or even 

 young children. 



Nevertheless, giant centipedes which are so abundant in tropical 

 regions are dreaded by the human inhabitants. In 1798 the re- 

 nowned natural historian Donovan wrote oi Scolopendra morsitans: 

 'Travellers agree that the temperate parts of Asia would be a ter- 

 restrial paradise, were it not for the multitude of troublesome 

 insects and reptiles with which they are infested. In a well cultiva- 

 ted country, like China, many of these creatures can scarcely find 

 shelter; but such as harbour in the walls or furniture of human 

 dwellings are as abundant in that, as in any other country that lies 

 within or near the tropics. Amongst the latter, none produce more 

 terrible effects than the centipede, whose poison is as venomous as 

 that of the scorpion, which also is a native of China.' A small speci- 

 men only 85 mm long was found by a zoology student of Exeter 

 University College under a boulder at Cassis, near Marseilles, in 

 1949. It bit him on the second finger of his right hand as he caught 

 it. After about a quarter of an hour the base of the finger had swol- 

 len considerably and the pain was similar to that of a hornet sting. 

 Within an hour the whole hand had swollen to twice its normal 

 size but was not painful to touch. The effects had quite gone three 

 days later (Turk, 1951). 



The refrain of a Trinidad calypso runs: *Man centipede bad, 

 bad; woman centipede worse than bad.' Nevertheless, Indian chil- 

 dren have been seen to drag huge centipedes out of the earth and 

 eat them. The African Arabs devour Scolopendras alive, often in 

 company with scorpions, broken glass, leaves of prickly pear and 



