162 FORMICID^ — ANTS. 



venery, and the oil thereof, by infusion, is good for the gout 

 and palsy. "^ 



Sloane tells us the Spaniards in the West Indies have a 

 very highly valued medicated earth called "Makimaki," 

 which he thinks is made of the nests of Ants.^ 



There is a sjjccies of Ant in Cayenne, Formica bispinosa, 

 which collects from the borabax and silk-cottou trees a sort 

 of lint which the natives value much as a styptic in cases of 

 hemorrhage.^ 



The magicians, as mentioned by Pliny, recommended that 

 the parings of all the finger-nails should be thrown at the 

 entrance of Ant-holes, and the first Ant to be taken which 

 should attempt to draw one into the hole ; for if this, they 

 asserted, be attached to the neck of a patient, he will ex- 

 perience a speedy cure.* 



The two following remarkable cures effected by Ants of 

 themselves are worthy of being noticed : Schuman, a mis- 

 sionary among the negroes of Surinam, relates in one of 

 his letters, that after a most dangerous attack of the accli- 

 mating fever, his body was covered with boils and painful 

 sores. He lay in his cot as helpless as a child, and had no 

 one to administer any relief or food but a poor old negro 

 woman, who sometimes was obliged to follow the rest to the 

 plantations in the woods. One morning while she was absent, 

 after spending a most restless and painful night, he observed 

 at sunrise an immense host of Ants entering through the roof, 

 and spread themselves over the inside of his chamber ; and 

 expecting little else than that they would make a meal of 

 him, he commended his soul to God, and hoped thus to be 

 released from all suffering. They presently covered his bed, 

 and entering his sores caused him the most tormenting pain. 

 However, tliey soon quitted him, and continued their march, 

 and from that time he gradually recovered his health.^ 



The second is a case of stiffness in the knee effectually 

 cured: In 1798, Mrs. Jane Crabley, aged 56 years, begau 

 to complain of a most torturing pain, and considerable en- 

 largement of the knee-pan, which she described as, and 



^ James's jVcd. Diet. 



2 Hitit. of Jam., ii. 221. 



3 Brande's Encycl. of Sci. Lit., etc. 

 * Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii. 7 (23). 



& SouLhey's Com. Place Book, 3d S. p. 419. 



