DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 75 



which it was placed, the saline taste with which it was imbued was so 

 powerful that it was some time before it was dissipated from my mouth.^ 

 — I shall only mention one more instance, because it is a singular one. 

 The larva of Helophilus pendiihis, a fly peculiarly formed by nature for 

 mlmb'iting^idds, has been found in the stomach of a woman.^ 



You will smile when I tell you that I have met with the prescription of 

 a famous urine-doctor, in which he recommends to his credulous patient 

 to take a ceitain number o? sow bugs per diem, by this name distinguishing, 

 as I suppose, the pill-raillepede (Armadillo vulgaris), once a very favourite 

 remedy. What effect they produced in this case I was not informed ; 

 but the learned Bonnet relates that he had seen a certificate of an English 

 physician, dated July 1763, stating that, some time before, a young woniau 

 who had swallowed these animals alive, as is usually done, threw up a pro- 

 digious number of them of all sizes, which must have bred in her stomach.* 

 — Another apterous species aj)pears to have been detected in a still more 

 remarkable situation. Hermann, the author of the admirable Memuire 

 Aplerologique, whose untimely death is so much to be lamented, informs us 

 that an Acarus, figured and described in his work (A. marginatus), was ob- 

 served by his artist running on the co?-piis callosum of the brain of a patient 

 in the military hospital at Strasbourg, which had been opened but a minute 

 before, and the two hemispheres and the pia mater just separated. He 

 adds that this is not the first time that insects iiave been found in the 

 brain. Cornelius Gemma, in iiis Cosmocritica, p. 241., says that on dissect- 

 ing the brain of a woman there were found in it abundance of vermicles and 

 jjunaises.'^ 



It was customary in many countries in ancient times to punish certain 

 malefactors by exposing them to be devoured by wild beasts: but to expose 

 them to insects for the same purpose was a refinen)eut in cruelty which 

 seems to have been peculiar to the despots of Persia. We are informed 

 that the most severe punishment amongst tiie Persians was that of sliut- 

 ting up the offender between two boats of equal size ; they laid him in one 

 of them upon his back, and covered him with the other, his hands, feet, and 

 head being left bare. . His face, which was placed full 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 entrails. He was compelled to 

 take as much food as was necessary to support life, and thus existed some- 

 times for several days. Plutarch informs us, that Mithridates, 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 gnaw- 

 ing 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 ?^ 



1 Specimens of a dipterous larva, of which, like the above, several had been dis- 

 chargud with the urine of a patient, were exhibited to the Kutomolotjical Society 

 April 4. IS-ll.l, Ijy l^rofessor Owen, who j)ointe(l out tlic great sing'tilarity of the case, 

 and tlie dilHculty of accounting for the existence of the hu-va in the bladder. (^Fro- 

 ceedinf)s of Ent. Soc. Land. p. 7.) 



' J'liilns. Mag. ix. 36G. 



3 Bonnet, v. 144. 



4 Mini. Apterolofj. 79. 6 Universal Jlistori/, iv. 70. ed. 1779. 



8 For numerous cases of insects occasionally found in the human body, see a 



