204 CASE OF ANDREW MITCHELL. 



mucus, sometimes tinged with blood, takes place occasionally from tlie 

 o^iposite nostril from that from which the three insects have been dis- 

 charged. All the insects proceeded from the same nostril. 



August 24. 1839. — Great discharge of blood, followed by much pain 

 at night. 



Septemher 2. 1839. — Painful at times, with lumpy discharge. The 

 pain has been for the most part on the left side of the face until a 

 mercurial plaster was put there, when it partially shifted to the right 

 side, " Gumbles " are felt in the head when he runs or takes any 

 sharp exercise. 



He is supposed to find some relief from sweet-oil dropped into the 

 ear, as he frequently desires this to be done. 



On the sixth of September the boy was brought to Twizell by his 

 mother, and their statements tallied in every respect with the written 

 account produced, and furnished by the Eev. Mr Perigal of Ellingham. 

 The boy still continues to feel unpleasant sensations in the left side of 

 the head behind the temporal region, and he complained much this 

 morning after taking some quick exercise, of the pains in the head and 

 left ear, and of the "ywwiJ/es," or peculiar sensations already noticed, 

 from which symptoms, it would apj)ear, that some larvce exist in the 

 passages or ethmoid cells. The larvae excluded, two of which I ex- 

 amined (and one is now produced), are evidently those of a coleopterous 

 insect, and they approach very closely to the figure of that of Blaps 

 mortisaga in Westwood's Insects. Oases are upon record of vast 

 numbers of the larvse of this beetle, as well as the pupa, and, in one 

 or two instances, the imago, having been ejected from the stomach. 

 (See Westwood, who mentions one case of an Irish woman, supposed 

 to have originated from drinking daily water mixed with earth from 

 the graves of two Roman Oatholic priests.) No case, however, similar 

 to the present, or where they have existed in the head or nasal 

 passages, is mentioned. The query is, How did the eggs or larvae get 

 there ? The boy appears to be in delicate health from the effects 

 produced by these insects, as, previous to this attack, he was quite 

 healthy and strong. He has never felt any uneasy sensation in the 

 stomach, or any other part, the head alone having been affected. 



P. J. S. 



P. S. Wohlfahrt has written a paper with the title " De vermibus 

 per nares excretis." A scolopendra has been found in the frontal 

 sinus, and in the nostrils. Kilgour gives a case of larvce in the nose 

 destroyed bj' infusion of tobacco ; Heysham another of a larva in the 

 antrum maxillare. Mr Olark supposes, without sufiicient reason, that 

 in these cases the larvae were those of an oestrus. See Young's Med. 

 Literature, p. 418 ; and Lin. Trans, iii, p. 323. Gr. J. 



