DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 143 



flesh all consumed, and myriads of worms gnawing his 

 bowels^. Could any natural objects be made more hor- 

 rible and effectual instruments of torture than insects 

 were in this most diabolical invention of tyranny ? 



In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I 

 raust not wholly pass over the serious and sometimes 

 fatal effects produced upon some persons by eating 

 honey, or even by drinking mead. I once kne\A a lady 

 upon whom these acted like poison, and have heard of 

 instances in which death was the consequence. Some- 

 times, when be^es extract their honey from poisonous 

 plants, such results have not been confined to indivi- 

 duals of a particular habit or constitution. A remark- 

 able proof of this is given by Dr. Barton in the fifth vo- 

 lume of The American Philosophical Transactions. In 

 the autumn and winter of the year 1790, an extensive 

 mortality was produced amongst those w ho had par- 

 taken of the honey collected in the neighbourhood of 

 Philadelphia. The attention of the American Govern- 

 ment was excited by the general distress, a minute in- 

 quiry into the cause of the mortality ensued, and it was 

 satisfactorily ascertained that the honey had been chiefly 

 extracted from the flowers of Kalmia latifoUa. 



Amongst other direct injuries occasioned by these 

 creatures, perhaps, out of regard for the ladies, I ought 

 to notice the alarm which many of them occasion to the 

 loveliest part of the creation. When some females 

 retire from society to avoid a wasp; others faint at the 

 sight of a spider ; and others, again, die with terror 

 if they hear a death-watch : these groundless appre- 

 hensions and superstitious alarms are as much real 



" Universal lJislonj,\\. 10. Ld.- 1773. 



