

DIKECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 53 



stupidly insensible to their value as alarums) find completely effectual to 

 put to flight these insects and their neighbours the lice. This is not, as 

 you may be tempted to think, by a remarkable attention to cleanliness. 

 Quite the reverse. They grease their linen with hog's lard, and thus 

 render themselves disgusting even to fleas ! If this does not satisfy, I 

 have another recipe in store for you. You may shoot at them with a 

 cannon, as report says did Christina queen of Sweden, whose piece of 

 artillery, of Lilliputian calibre, which was employed in this warfare, is still 

 exhibited in the arsenal of Stockholm. 1 But, seriously, if you wish for an 

 effectual remedy, that prescribed by old Tusser, in the following lines, will 

 answer your purpose : 



" While wormwood hath seed, get a handfull or twaine, 

 To save against March, to make flea to refraine : 

 Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strown, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be known." 



To this family belongs an insect, abundant in the West Indies and South 

 America, the attacks of which are infinitely more serious than those of the 

 common flea. You will readily conjecture that I am speaking of the 

 celebrated Chigoe or Jiggers, called also Nigua, Tungua, and Pique 2 (Pulex 

 [Sarcopsylla] penetrans), one of the direst personal pests with which the sins 

 of man have been visited. All disputes concerning the genus of this insect 

 would have been settled long before Swartz's time (who first gave a satis- 

 factory description and figure of it, proving it to be a Pulex, as has been 

 observed above), had success attended the patriotic attempt of the Ca- 

 puchin friar recorded by Walton in his History of St. Domingo, who 

 brought away with him from that island a colony of these animals, which 

 he permitted to establish themselves in one of his feet ; but unfortunately 

 for himself, and for science, the foot entrusted with the precious deposit 

 mortified, was obliged to be amputated, and with all its inhabitants com- 

 mitted to the waves. According to Ulloa, and his opinion is confirmed by 

 Jussieu, there are two South American species of this mischievous insect. 

 It is described as generally attacking the feet and legs 3 , getting, without 

 being felt, between the skin and the flesh, usually under the nails of the 

 toes, where it nidificates and lays its eggs, which previously swell out the 

 abdomen to a great size ; and if timely attention be not paid to it, which, 

 as it occasions no other uneasiness than itching (the sensation at first, I am 

 assured, is rather pleasing than otherwise), is sometimes neglected, it mul- 

 tiplies to such a degree, as to be attended by the most fatal consequences, 

 often, as in the above instance, rendering amputation necessary, and some- 

 times causing death. 4 The female slaves in the West Indies are frequently 

 employed to extract these pests, which they do with uncommon dexterity. 

 Yarico, so celebrated in prose and verse, performed this kind office for 



1 Linn. Lack. Lapp. ii. 32. note *. 



2 Latreille after De Geer (vii. 153.) supposes the Pique and Nigua of Ulloa to be 

 synonymous with Ixodes americanus, L. Hist. Nat. vii. 364. ; but it is evident from 

 Ulloafs descriptions ( Voy. i. 63. Engl. Trans.) that they are synonymous with the 

 Chigoe, or Pulex penetrans. 



3 Captain Hancock, late commander of His Majesty's ship the Foudroyant, to 

 whose friendly exertions I am indebted for one of the finest collections of Brazil in- 

 sects ever brought to England, informs me that they will attack any exposed part 

 of the body. He had them once in his hand. 



4 Piso and Margr. Ind. 289. 



E 3 



