275 



to be spreading with yon there is every reason to believe that it will become serionsly 

 injnrions nnless remedial nieasnres are undertaken. Yon will find the species men- 

 tioned upon page 40, of Hubbard's "Insects Aliectiug the Orange." — [October 2(i, 

 1891.] 



On the Treatment of Human Patients affected with Screw Worm. 



I have delayed answering your kind communication relating to the Texas Screw 

 Worm, Comjisomyia (LuviUa) macellaria, until hearing from the Louisiana and 

 Texas Ex])eriment Stations, to which you referred me. I am in receipt of their 

 bulletins on the subject, and tind theni very complete in every detail. Yet the 

 remedies which are described in the bulletins as being efficacious in the destruc- 

 tion of the Screw Worm (chloroform, ether, carbolic acid, bichloride mercury, 

 turiientine, etc.), are scarcely applicable to human patients, owing to the ex- 

 treme sensitiveness of the parts atiected. I have tried all of the enumerated mate- 

 rials for the destruction of the Screw Worm, and my experiments scarcely tally with 

 those of the bulletins. For example, I have found the worm to live for four minutes 

 in pure carbolic acid; in strong turpentine for iifteen minutes. Chloroform has 

 proved most satisfactory, as the maggot was killed by immersion for thirty seconds. 



It is, however, unnecessary to add, that it is impossible to apply these medica- 

 ments in pure form in so sensitive a locality of the delicate mucous membrane of the 

 nose and pharynx; again, in a diluted form, such remedies would accomplish but 

 little. Therefore, in treatment of my patients medicaments were unsuccessfully 

 tried, and surgical measures had to be instituted. * * * — [M. A. Goldstein, M. D., 

 Missouri, December 13, 1891. 



Bot-fly Larvae burrowing under the Skin of Man. 



» » • In reference to the article in Insect Life, vol. II, pp. 238, 239; "A grub 

 supposed to have traveled in the human body," I greatly regret that I have no more 

 separata left of my article in the Swedish " Entomologisk Tidskrift," on the occur- 

 rence of Dipterous grubs under the skin of man. As pointed out in this article, we 

 have known of such occurrences in some districts of our country for one hundred 

 years past and up tc the present time, ^lany of these grubs I have myself seen and 

 examined, and they were all of them Hj'poderma larvre (sine diibio — Hyp. bovis), and 

 as a rule they have undertaken longer ramblings under the skin, always in upward 

 directions, previous t'> their appearance through an opening in a tumor on the upper 

 part of the body (head, neck, shoulders, etc.). All of them lived in this manner 

 for months, and came out in the course of the winter mouths (February or so), but 

 were always still much too young to be hatched. However, I have no doubt at all, 

 that they belong to Hyp. bovis, as it is especially in those persons who take care 

 of cattle in the summer months that such grubs are to be foiind during the winter. 

 It is evidently the smell of cattle which attracts the Bot Fly to them. Hyj}. diana 

 does not occur in our country. 



The article may be found in the Entomologisk Tidskrift, Stockholm, 1886, pp. 171-187, 

 and contains also a short historic rdsum^ of all accidents of this kind observed up to 

 that time, and which have beeu published here in Norway and elsewhere. — [W. M. 

 Schoyen, Norway, November 11, 1891. 



Reply. — * * * The facts which you give me concerning this traveling larva of 

 Hypoderma are very interesting, and I will look up the article in the Entomologisk 

 Tidskrijt for 1886. As you will have noticed probably upon pages 201 and 207, vol. 

 II, Insect Life, Dr. Cooper Curtice, formerly of this Department, claims to have 

 proven that Hypoderma bovis frequently hatches from the egg in the (esophagus of 

 cattle, pierces the oesophagal walls and travels through the subcutaneous tissue until 

 it reaches a point under the skin of the back where it becomes more or less encysted. 

 The facts which you give have a strong bearing on this more or less theoretical 

 position of Dr. Curtice. — [November 27, 1891.] 



