440 THE INSECT WOULD. 



tried in succession a great many preparations to remedy the results 

 of these terrible accidents. It appears that the Cetonia, dried and 

 reduced to powder, has produced on many occasions good effects. 

 This is the recipe which an inhabitant of Saratow published in a 

 Russian journal adding, that he had employed it for thirty years, 

 that not one of the patients treated by him had died, and that his 

 remedy could be employed with success in all the phases of the 

 disease. In spring they search at the bottom of the nests of the 

 Red ant for certain white larvae, which they carefully preserve in 

 a pot, together with the earth in which they were found, till the 

 moment of their metamorphosis, which takes place in the month of 

 May. The insect, which is the common Rose beetle, is killed, 

 dried, and kept in pots hermetically sealed, so that it may preserve 

 the strong odour which it exhales in spring, which seems to be a 

 necessary condition of the remedy proving efficient. When a case 

 of hydrophobia presents itself, they reduce to powder some of these, 

 and spread this powder on a piece of bread-and-butter, and make 

 the patient eat it. Every part of the insect must enter into the com- 

 position of this powder, which, for this reason, cannot be very 

 fine. During the whole time a patient is under treatment he must 

 avoid drinking as much as possible, or if his thirst is very great, 

 he must only drink a little pure water ; but he may eat. Generally, 

 this remedy produces sleep, which may last for thirty-six hours, 

 and which must not be disturbed. When the patient wakes he is, 

 they say, cured. The bite must be treated locally with the usual 

 surgical appliances. 



As to the dose of the remedy, that depends on the age of the 

 patient and the development of the disease. They give, to an 

 adult, immediately after the bite, from two to three beetles ; to a 

 child, from one to two ; to a person in whom the disease has 

 already declared itself, from four to five. Given to a person in 

 good health the remedy, however, would not be the least dangerous. 

 In cases in which the symptoms of hydrophobia show themselves 

 some days after the employment of the remedy, they recommence 

 the treatment. They have also tried to prepare this remedy with 

 insects collected, not in their larva but in the imago state, by 

 catching them on flowers, and it seems that these attempts have 

 succeeded. According to M. Bogdanoff, in many governorships 



