76 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I must not wholly pass 

 over the serious and sometimes fatal effects produced upon some persons by 

 eating honey, or even by drinking mead. I once knew a lady upon whom 

 these acted like poison, and have heard of instances in which death was 

 the consequence. Sometimes, when bees extract their honey from 

 poisonous plants, such results have not been confined to individuals of a 

 particular habit or constitution. A remarkable proof of this is given by 

 Dr. Barton in the fifth volume of The American Philosophical Transactions. 

 In the autumn and winter of the year 1790 an extensive mortality was 

 produced amongst those who had partaken of the honey collected in the 

 neighbourhood of Philadelphia. The attention of the American govern- 

 ment was excited by the general distress, a minute inquiry into the cause 

 of the mortality ensued, and it was satisfactorily ascertained that the honey 

 had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of Kalmia latifolia. Though the 

 honey mentioned in Xenophon's well-known account of the effect of a 

 particular sort eaten by the Grecian soldiers during the celebrated retreat 

 after the death of the younger Cyrus did not operate fatally, it gave those 

 of the soldiers who ate it in small quantities the appearance of being intoxi- 

 cated, and such as partook of it freely, of being mad or about to die, 

 numbers lying on the ground as if after a defeat. A specimen of this 

 honey, which still retains its deleterious properties, was sent to the Zoolo- 

 gical Society in 1834-, from Trebizond on the Black Sea, by Keith E. 

 Abbott, Esq. 1 



Amongst other direct injuries occasioned by these creatures, perhaps, 

 out of regard for the ladies, I ought to notice the alarm which many of 

 them occasion to the loveliest part of the creation. When some females 

 retire from society to avoid a wasp, others faint at the sight of a spider, 

 and others, again, die with terror if they hear a death-watch : these ground- 

 less apprehensions and superstitious alarms are as much real evils to those 

 who feel them as if they were well-founded. But having already adverted 

 to this subject, I shall here only quote the observation of a wise man, that 

 " Fear is a betraying of the succours that reason qffireth." 2 The best 

 remedy, therefore, in such cases, is going to reason for succour. In a few 

 instances, indeed, the evil may take root in a constitutional defect; forthere 

 seems to be some foundation for the doctrine of natural antipathies : but, 

 generally speaking, in consequence of the increased attention to Natural 

 History, the reign of imaginary evils is ceasing amongst us, and what used 



very valuable paper in Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. 257. by the Rev. F. W. Hope, 

 F.R.S., in which the whole are brought together in a tabular form, so that the 

 kind of insect, the local affection, and various other particulars, can be seen at a 

 glance. Mr. Hope proposes to adopt the term Canthariasis for those diseases which 

 originate with coleopterous insects, whether in the perfect or larva state ; that of 

 Myasis for those caused by dipterous larvae, while he restricts the term Schokchiasis 

 to those resulting from lepidopterous larvae. Of the first (including two cases 

 arising from the earwig), he enumerates thirty-eight cases ; of the second, sixty- 

 four; and of the third, seven. He suggests that the eggs of many of these larvae have 

 been introduced into the stomach with bread, butter, cheese, and even upon cooked 

 food, upon which they have been deposited by the parent beetles or flies in our 

 larders and cellars, &c."; others with ripe fruit or raw vegetables, as lettuces, water- 

 cresses, &c. ; and others again in impure and turbid water. 



i Xenophon, Anabas. 1. iv. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. xxxi. 



* Wisd. xvii. 12. 



