The Mantis: her Nest 



copoeia, in Provence, extols the tlgno as the 

 best remedy against chilblains. The way to 

 employ it is exceedingly simple. You cut the 

 thing in two, squeeze it and rub the afflicted 

 part with the streaming juice. The remedy, 

 they say, works like a charm. Every one 

 mad with the itching of blue and swollen 

 fingers hastens to have recourse to the tigno, 

 according to traditional custom. Does he 

 really obtain relief? 



Notwithstanding the unanimous convic- 

 tion, I venture to doubt it, after the fruitless 

 experiments tried upon myself and other 

 members of my household during the winter 

 of 1895, when the long and severe frost pro- 

 duced any amount of epidermic discomfort. 

 Not one of us, when smeared with the cele- 

 brated ointment, saw the chilblains on his 

 fingers decrease nor felt the irritation re- 

 lieved in the slightest degree by the al- 

 buminous varnish of the crushed tigno. It 

 seems probable that others are no more suc- 

 cessful and that the popular reputation of 

 the specific nevertheless survives, probably 

 because of a mere identity of name between 

 the remedy and the disease: the Provencal 

 for chilblain is tigno. Once that the nest of 

 the Praying Mantis and the chilblain are 

 167 



