138 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



instances of persons, who, after having bled at the nose 

 in their sleep, were attacked by the most violent head- 

 aches ; when at length several great maggots, the off- 

 spring of these flies, issuing from their nostrils, gave 

 them relief. In Jamaica a large blue fly buzzes about the 

 sick in the last stages of fever ; and when they sleep or 

 doze with their mouths open, the nurses find it very dif- 

 ficult to prevent these flies from laying their eggs in the 

 nose, mouth, or gums. An instance is recorded of a 

 lady who, after recovering from a fever, fell a victim to 

 the maggots of this fly, which from the nose found their 

 way through the os cribriforme into the cavity of the skull, 

 and afterwards into the brain a . One of the most shock- 

 ing cases of Scolechiasis I ever met with is related in Bell's 

 Weekly Messenger in the following words: " On Thurs- 

 day, June 25, died at Asbornby, (Lincolnshire] John 

 Page, a pauper belonging to Silk-Willoughby, under 

 circumstances truly singular. He being of a restless dis- 

 position, and not choosing to stay in the parish work- 

 house, was in the habit of strolling about the neighbour- 

 ing villages, subsisting on the pittance obtained from door 

 to door : the support he usually received from the be- 

 nevolent was bread and meat ; and after satisfying the 

 cravings of nature, it was his custom to deposit the sur- 

 plus provision, particularly the meat, betwixt his shirt 

 and skin. Having a considerable portion of this pro- 

 vision in store, so deposited, he was taken rather un- 

 well, and laid himself down in a field in the parish of 

 Scredington when from the heat of the season at that 

 time, the meat speedily became putrid, and was of course 

 struck by the flies : these not only proceeded to devour 



* Lempriere On the Diseases of the Army in Jamaica, ii. 182. 



