DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



you may be tempted to think, by a remarkable attention to cleanliness. — 

 Quite tlie reverse. — They grease their linen with hog's lard, and thus 

 render themselves disgusting even to fleas ! If this does not satisfy, I 

 have another recipe in store for you. You may shoot at them with a 

 cannon, as report says did Christina queen of Sweden, whose piece of 

 artillery, of Lilliputian caliber, which was employed in this warfare, is 

 still exhibited in the arsenal of Stockholm.^ But, seriously, if you wish 

 for an effectual remedy, that prescribed by old Tusser, in the following 

 lines, will answer your purpose; — 



" While wormwood halh seed, get a handful! or twaine, 

 To save against March, to make flea to refraine : 

 Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strown, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be known." 



To this family belongs an insect, abundant in the West Indies and South 

 America, the attacks of which are infinitely more serious than those of the 

 common flea. You will readily conjecture that I am speaking of the cele- 

 brated Chigoe or Jiggers, called also Nigua, Tungua, and Pique^ {Pulex 

 Sarcopsylla penetrans) one of the direst personal pests with which the 

 sins of man have been visited. All disputes concerning the genus of this 

 insect would have been settled long before Swartz's tiirie (who first gave 

 a satisfactory description and figure of it, proving it to be a Pulex, as has 

 been observed above), had success attended the patriotic attempt of the 

 Capuchin friar, recorded by Walton in his History of St. Domingo, who 

 brought away with him from that island a colony of these animals, which 

 he permitted to estabHsh themselves in one of his feet ; but unfortunately 

 for himself, and for science, the foot intrusted with the precious deposit 

 mortified, was obliged to be amputated, and with all its inhabitants com- 

 mitted to the waves. According to Ulloa, and his opinion is confirmed 

 by Jussieu, there are two South American species of this mischievous 

 insect. It is described as generally attacking the feet and legs^, getting, 

 without being felt, between the skin and the flesh, usually under the nails 

 of the toes, where it nidificates and lays its eggs, which previously swell 

 out the abdomen to a great size ; and if timely attention be not paid to it, 

 which, as it occasions no other uneasiness than itching (the sensation at 

 first, I am assured, is rather pleasing than otherwise), is sometimes neg- 

 lected, it multiplies to such a degree, as to be attended by the most fatal 

 consequences, often, as in the above instance, rendering amputation neces- 

 sary, and sometimes causing death.^ The female slaves in the West 

 Indies are frequently employed to extract these pests, which they do with 

 uncommon dexterity. Yarico, so celebrated in prose and verse, performed 

 this kind office for honest Ligon, who says, in his History of Barbadoes, 

 "I have had ten (^Chegoes) taken out of my feet in a morning, by the 

 most unfortunate Yarico, an Indian woman. "^ Humboldt observes, " that 



• Linn. Lack. Lapp. ii. 32. note *. 



« Latreille after De Geer (vii. 153.) supposes the Pique and Nigua of Ulloa to be synony- 

 mous with Lvodes americanus, L. Hist. Nat. vn. 364. ; but it is evident from UUoa's descrip- 

 tions {Voy. i. 63. Engl. Trans.) that they are synonymous with the Chigoe, or Fulex 

 penetrans. 



3 Cap'ain Hancock, late commander of His Majesty's ship the Foudroyant, to whose 

 friendly exertions I am indebted for one of the finest collections of Brazil insects ever brought 

 to England, informs me that they will attack any exposed part of the body. He had them 

 once in his hand. " * Piso and Margr. Ind. 289. * P. 65. 



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