142 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



hands, leet, and head being left bare. His face, which 

 was phiced lull in the sun, they moistened with honey, 

 thus inviting the flies and wasps, which tormented him 

 no less than the swarms of maggots that were bred in his 

 excrements and body, and devoured him to the very en- 

 trails. He was compelled to take as much food as was 

 necessary to support life, and thus existed sometimes for 

 several days. Plutarch informs us thatMithridates, whom 

 Artaxerxes Longimanus condemned to this punishment, 

 lived seventeen days in the utmost agony; and that, the 

 uppermost boat being taken off at his death, they found 

 his flesh all consumed, and myriads of worms gnawing 

 his bowels^ . Could any natural objects be made more 

 horrible and effectual instruments of torture than insects 

 were in this most diabolical invention of tyranny? 



In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I 

 must not wholly pass over the serious and sometimes 

 fatal effects produced upon some persons by eating honey, 

 or even by drinking mead. I once knew a lady upon 

 whom these acted like poison, and have heard of instances 

 in which death was the consequence. Sometimes, when 

 bees extract their honej' from poisonous plants, such re- 

 sults have not been confined to individuals of a particular 

 habit or constitution. A remarkable proof of this is given 

 by Dr. Barton in the fifth volume of The American Phi- 

 losophical Transactions. In the autumn and winter of the 

 year 1790, an extensive mortality was produced amongst 

 those who had partaken of the honey collected in the 

 neighbourhood of Philadelphia. The attention of the 

 American Government was excited by the general di- 

 stress, a minute inquiry into the cause of the mortality 



* Universal Hidari/, iv. 70. Ed. 1779. 



