SPIDER BITES AND ''KISSING BUGSr 35 



he was temporarily insane owing to the bite of the '' kissing bug." 

 Entomologists all through the East were also much overworked 

 answering questions asked them about the mysterious creature. 

 Men of local entomological reputations were applied to by news- 

 paper reporters, by their friends, by people who knew them, in 

 church, on the street, and under all conceivable circumstances. 

 Editorials were written about it. Even the Scientific American 

 published a two-column article on the subject; and, while no inter- 

 national complications have resulted as yet, the kissing bug, in its 

 own way and in the short space of two months, produced almost 

 as much of a scare as did the San Jose scale in its five years of 

 Eastern excitement. Now, however, the newspapers have had their , 

 fun, the necessary amount of space has been filled, and the sub- 

 ject has assumed a castaneous hue, to Latinize the slang of a few 

 years back. 



The experience has been a most interesting one. To the reader 

 familiar with the old accounts of the hysterical craze of south Eu- 

 rope, based upon supposed tarantula bites, there can not fail to 

 come the suggestion that we have had in miniature and in mod- 

 ernized form, aided largely by the newspapers, a hysterical craze 

 of much the same character. From the medical and psychological 

 point of view this aspect is interesting, and deserves investigation 

 by competent persons. 



As an entomologist, however, the writer confines himself to 

 the actual authors of the bites so far as he has been able to deter- 

 mine them. It seems undoubtedly true that while there has been 

 a great cry there has been very little wool. It is undoubtedly 

 true, also, that there have been a certain number of bites by hete- 

 ropterous insects, some of which have resulted in considerable swell- 

 ing. It seems true that Melanotestis picipes and Opsicostes per- 

 sonatus have been more numerous than usual this year, at least 

 around Washington. They have been captured in a number of 

 instances while biting people, and have been brought to the writ- 

 er's ofiice for determination in such a way that there can be no 

 doubt about the accuracy of this statement. As the story, went 

 West, bites by Conorhinus sanguisuga and Basatus thoracicus were 

 without doubt termed " kissing-bug " bites. With regard to other 

 cases, the writer has known of an instance where the mosquito bite 

 upon the lip of a sleeping child produced a very considerable swell- 

 ing. Therefore he argues that many of these reported cases may 

 have been nothing more than mosquito bites. With nervous and 

 excitable individuals the symptoms of any skin puncture become 

 exaggerated not only in the mind of the individual but in their 

 actual characteristics, and not only does this refer to cases of skin 



