314? DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



five gnats as an excellent purge; wasps as diuretics; 

 lady-birds for the colic and measles ; the cock-chafer for 

 the bite of a mad dog and the plague ; and ants and their 

 acid I should have loudly praised as incomparable against 

 leprosy and deafness, as strengthening the memory, and 

 giving vigour and animation to the whole bodily frame a . 

 In short, I could have easily added to the miserably 

 meager list of modern pharmacopoeias, a catalogue of 

 approved insect-remedies for every disease and evil 

 " that flesh is heir to ! " 



But these good times are long gone by. You would, I 

 fear, laugh at my prescriptions notwithstanding the great 

 authorities I could cite in their favour ; and even doubt 

 the efficacy of a more modern specific for tooth-ache, 

 promulgated by a learned Italian professor b , who assures 

 us that a finger once imbued with the juices of Rhino- 

 batus antiodontalgicm (a name enough to give one the 

 tooth-ache to pronounce it) will retain its power of curing 

 this disease for a twelvemonth ! I must content myself, 

 therefore, with expatiating on the virtues of the very few 

 insects to which the sons of Hippocrates and Galen now 

 deign to have recourse. At the same time I cannot help 

 observing that their proscription of the remainder may 

 have been too indiscriminate. Mankind are apt to run 

 from one extreme to the other. From having ascribed 

 too much efficacy to insect-remedies, we may now as- 

 cribe too little. Many insects emit very powerful odours, 

 and some produce extraordinary effects upon the human 

 frame ; and it is an idea not altogether to be rejected, 



3 For this list of remedies, see Lesser, L. ii. 171-3. 

 b Gerbi. The same virtues have been ascribed to Coccinctta sep- 

 tempunctata, L. 



