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usual sense of the word, but a peculiar pns-formation beneath the outer layer of the 
skin. If any reader ever saw a post-mortem of a case of sudden, violent headache, 
excruciating in its agony, terminating in about two days in death, and on opening the 
skull has seen the waved lines of pus just under the covering of the brain, he has seen 
the form of the blistering of the potato-bug. It is that beneath a fiery red skin there 
appears irregular waved lines, about a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch wide, of pus 
or matter, which connect with each other. A marbled surface, congested, and with so 
much purulent matter that it seems as if by pricking it with a lancet a large quantity 
of pus would escape; but on using the lancet, even by dozens of cuts, but little of 
the yellow or greenish pus escapes. This man was six weeks in recovering. 
The next case was also an Irishman. He was predisposed to gout and gouty rheu- 
matism. WhenI was called to see him he had the pus-mark of the potato-bug, that 
is, the moss-like, or plant-like wavy lines of green and yellow pus on both feet and 
ankles; one leg up to the knee. I immediately asked for exposure to potato-bug; he 
denied any; but his daughter brought a pair of old shoes full of holes, and without 
strings, which were covered on their inside with the crushed wings of the Colorado 
potato-beetle. Then he said, “I never paid any attention to the bugs; did not know 
they could do any harm.” He had worked three days with his feet wet with the juice 
of the beetles and larva, and his filthy old stockings stained with them, and not 
washed his feet at night. He lingered over two months and died in consequence. 
The symptoms of the poisoning are burning, or “blistering heat,” pain, restless 
oppression in the part, and the peculiar moss-like lines of slight deposit of pus in a 
mottled red, blackish skin. In the severe cases only constant application of ice or 
cold water gives ease; and, in the cases of my two Irishmen, even opiates gave but- 
imperfect sleep. 
The cuticle does not tend to break until a glove-like separation of the cuticle takes. 
place quite imperfectly, and this with but little relief to the distress in severe cases. 
I have seen but one case of breathing the fumes of hot water in scalding to death 
the bugs recently deposited. That had the red, angry appearance as if commencing 
scarlet fever, (in the throat,) with a choking sensation. It was intractable to any ordi- 
nary remedies either regular or homeopathic. 
Hence, I conclude that while thousands work in potatoes infected with Colorado 
beetles and their larva and kill these insects, without danger, yet there is danger of a 
peculiar, intractable poisoning, attended with a pus formation not unlike that of 
certain forms of arachnoidites. And, therefore, those liable to scrofulous and skin 
diseases and to throat diseases should use caution. 
Probably many are poisoned who do not know it, and, as has been in trichina and 
other diseases, die, and the cause of disease is not recognized either by themselves or 
their physicians. Had I not seen the first Irishman, I certainly had not found out 
that the second died of potato-bug poison. 
MOTIVE POWER OF ANIMALS.—In a paper recently read before the 
French society for the advancement of science, M. Marey showed that 
animals employed as motors ‘exercised their power by jerks, so that 
commonly there was a waste of labor. He recommended the use of 
elastic material, such as India rubber, in carriage-traces, &c., in order to 
equalize and economize the power of the animal. In towing canal-boats 
by aid of long ropes, the tightening and slacking of the rope, and its 
oscillating movement, contribute to the desired elasticity of draught. 
