DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 131 



called there the eye-flij. At this season the eyes are 

 attacked by a disease, supposed to be occasioned by eat- 

 ing- the mangoes, but more probably the result of the 

 irritation produced by the fly in question, which, how- 

 ever, they admit, carries the infection from one person 

 to another. 



You know that the hairs taken from the pods of Do//- 

 chos pruriens and urens, L., commonly called Cowhage 

 and Cow-itc/i^, occasions a most violent itching, but 

 perhaps are not aware that those of the caterpillars of 

 several Bomhi/ces, a family of Moths, will produce the 

 same disagreeable effect. One of tliese is the proces- 

 sion moth, (B.processionea, L.) of wliich Reaumur has 

 given so interesting an account. In consequence of 

 their short st'ff hairs sticking in his skin, after handling 

 them, he suft'ered extremely for several days ; and be- 

 ing ignorant at first of the cause of the itching, and rub- 

 bing his eyes with his hands, he brought on a swelling 

 of the eye-lids, so that he could scarcely open them. 

 Ladies were affected even by going too near the nest of 

 the animal, and found their necks full of troublesome 

 tumours, occasioned by short hairs, or fragments of hair, 

 brought by the wind''. Of this nature also is the fa- 

 mous Pityocampa of the ancients, tlie moth of the fir 

 (B. pifi/ocampa, F.), the hairs of which are said to oc- 

 casion a very intense degree of pain, heat, fever, itch- 

 ing and restlessness. It was accounted by the Romans 

 a very deleterious poison, as is evident from the cir- 



^ Cowhage has been adniinistered with success as an anthelminthic, as 

 has likewise spun-glass pounded; the spicula of these substances destroy- 

 ing the worms. The hair of the caterpillars here alluded to, and perhaps 

 also of the larva of Uombyx Caja, (the Tiger-Moth), might probably be 

 equally efficacious. '' Reaum. ii. 191-5. 



K 2 



