Chap. 17.] EEMEDIES DERIVED FROM BUG3. 393 



are recommended by authors "with such a decree of assurance, 

 that it would be improper to omit them, the more particularly 

 as it is to the sympathy or antipathy of objects that remedies 

 owe their existence. Thus the bug, for instance, a most filthy 

 insect, and one the very name of which inspires us with loath- 

 ing, is said to be a neutralizer of the venom of serpents, asps in 

 particular, and to be a preservative against all kinds of poisons. 

 As a proof of this, they tell us that the sting of an asp is never 

 fatal to poultry, if they have eaten bugs that day ; and that, 

 if such is the case, their flesh is remarkably beneficial to persons 

 who have been stung by serpents. Of the various recipes^^ 

 given in reference to these insects, the least revolting are the 

 application of them externally to the wound, with the blood of 

 a tortoise ; the employment of them as a fumigation to make 

 leeches loose their hold ; and the administering of them to ani- 

 mals in drink when a leech has been accidentally swallowed. 

 Some persons, however, go so far as to crush bugs with salt 

 and woman's milk, and anoint the eyes with the mixture ; in 

 combination, too, with honey and oil of roses, they use them 

 as an injection for the ears. Field-bugs, again, and those found 

 upon the mallow, ^^ are burnt, and the ashes mixed with oil 

 of roses as an injection for the ears. 



As to the other remedial virtues attributed to bugs, for the 

 cure of vomiting, quartan fevers, and other diseases, although 

 we find recommendations given to swallow them in an eggy 

 some wax, or in a bean, I look upon them as utterly unfounded, 

 and not worthy of further notice. They are employed, how- 

 ever, for the treatment of lethargy, and with some fair reason, 

 as they successfully neutralize the narcotic efiects of the poison 

 of the asp : for this purpose seven of them are administered 

 in a cyathus of water, but in the case of children only four. 

 In cases, too, of strangury, they have been injected into the 

 urinary channel :^* so true it is that Nature, that universal 

 parent, has engendered nothing without some powerful reason 

 or other. In addition to these particulars, a couple of bugs, 



^' Guettaxd, a French commentator on Pliny, recommends bugs to be 

 taken internally for hysteria ! 



^3 Perhaps the Cimex pratensis is meant here. Neither this nor the 

 Cimex juniperinus, the Cimex brassic'cB, or the Lygaeus hyoscami has the 

 offensive smell of the house bug. 



^* An excellent method, Ajasson remarks, of adding to the tortures of 

 the patient. 



