The Stinging Power 



periment, the little square on the fore-arm 

 subjected to the poison is still discoloured. 



For thus branding one's self, does one at 

 least obtain some small reward? Yes. A 

 little truth is the balm spread upon the wound; 

 and indeed truth is a sovran balm. It will 

 come presently to solace us for much greater 

 sufferings. 



For the moment, this painful experiment 

 shows us that the irritation has not as its 

 primary cause the hairiness of the Procession- 

 ary. Here is no hair, no barb, no dart. All 

 of that has been retained by the filter. We 

 have nothing now but a poisonous agent ex- 

 tracted by the solvent, the ether. This ir- 

 ritant element recalls, to a certain extent, 

 that of cantharides, which acts by simple con- 

 tact. My square of poisoned blotting-paper 

 was a sort of plaster, which, instead of raising 

 the epidermis in great blisters, makes it bristle 

 with tiny pustules. 



The part played by the barbed hairs, those 

 atoms which the least movement of the air 

 disseminates in all directions, is confined to 

 conveying to our face and hands the irritant 

 substance in which they are impregnated. 

 Their barbs hold them in place and thus per- 



143 



