Ixxvi INTRODUCTION. 



Eleazar Albin, a man of piety and truthfulness, 

 wrote, m 1736, a treatise on Spiders and Insects, and 

 he illustrated his book with two hundred engravings of 

 different kinds of creatures. Albin personally testifies 

 to the powerful efficacy of clean spider-webs, beaten 

 into froth with the spawn of frogs, for the cure of 

 tertian and quartan agues ; and also he asserts that 

 this horrible compound is valuable as a styptic* 

 He declares, moreover, that live spiders, suspended 

 round the necks of children, are very efficacious in 

 certain forms of disease. Doubtless this treatment 

 must have produced rather exciting manifestations in 

 the minds of such patients. 



In a similar manner a plaister of powdered Cicada 

 mixed with pepper was given by some doctors to those 

 affected with colic ; and we are also told that Bp. 

 Lanfranc infused the ashes of Cicada) in a decoction 

 of radishes, for the purpose of breaking up a calculus. 

 Cicadse mixed with scorpion oil, also, was a nostrum 

 recommended by some physicians for a counter- 

 irritant, whilst others substituted Cicada for cantha- 

 rides as a diuretic. 



As a questionable benefit to man, it may be added 

 that the Cretan boys still take pleasure, as in ancient 

 times, in flying the large Cicadas in the air attached to 

 light strings, and in certain places these insects are still 

 kept in rush cages for the charm of their music. 



The elder Disraeli, in his ' Curiosities of Literature,' 

 remarks, "Dr. Moufet urged that health was dependent 

 on a spare diet, and that he held up the Cicada for our 

 example." 



Thomas Moufet, or Mouffet (for his name seems to 

 have been variously spelt), closes his remarks on 

 Cicada, in his ' Theatrum,' upon the debated question 

 as to the musical claims made for the chirping of this 

 insect, "Utcunque fuerit, recte de semet ipsa. Cicada 

 cecinit, meo judicio," and yet he is hard on " Senes 



* Cobwebs are even now used to check bleeding ; the light silky mass 

 assisting in the formation of a coagulum. 



