THE CIGALE LEAVES ITS BURROW 29 



Are you afflicted with any kidney trouble, or are you 

 swollen with dropsy, or have you need of some powerful 

 diuretic ? The village pharmacopoeia is unanimous in 

 recommending the Cigale as a sovereign remedy. The 

 insects in the adult form are collected in summer. They 

 are strung into necklaces which are dried in the sun and 

 carefully preserved in some cupboard or drawer. A good 

 housewife would consider it imprudent to allow July 

 to pass without threading a few of these insects. 



Do you suffer from any nephritic irritation or from 

 stricture ? Drink an infusion of Cigales. Nothing, they 

 say, is more effectual. I must take this opportunity of 

 thanking the good soul who once upon a time, so I was 

 afterwards informed, made me drink such a concoction 

 unawares for the cure of some such trouble ; but I still 

 remain incredulous. I have been greatly struck by the 

 fact that the ancient physician of Anazarbus used to 

 recommend the same remedy. Dioscorides tells us : 

 CicadcEy quae inassatae manduntur, vesicae doloribus 

 prosunt. Since the distant days of this patriarch of 

 materia medica the Provengal peasant has retained his 

 faith in the remedy revealed to him by the Greeks, who 

 came from Phocaea with the olive, the fig, and the vine. 

 Only one thing is changed : Dioscorides advises us to 

 eat the Cigales roasted, but now they are boiled, and the 

 decoction is administered as medicine. The explanation 

 which is given of the diuretic properties of the insect is 

 a marvel of ingenuousness. The Cigale, as every one 

 knows who has tried to catch it, throws a jet of Uquid 

 excrement in one's face as it flies away. It therefore 

 endows us with its faculties of evacuation. Thus Dios- 

 corides and his contemporaries must have reasoned ; so 

 reasons the peasant of Provence to-day. 



