66 BLAPSID^ — CHURCH- YARD BEETLE, ETC. 



of the insect we now call by that name — the Cockroach : 

 and may very properly be here introduced. "There is 

 kind of fattinesse," says this author in the words of his 

 translator, Philemon Holland, "to bee found in the Flie or 

 insect called Blatta, when the head is plucked off, which, 

 if it be punned and mixed with Oile of Roses, is (as they 

 say) wonderful good for the ears : but the wooU wherein 

 this medicine is enwrapped, and which is put into the ears, 

 must not long tarrie there, but within a little while drawne 

 forth againe; for the said fat will very soone get life and 

 prove a grub or little worme. Some writers there be who 

 affirme, that two or three of these flies called Blattae sodden 

 in oile, make a soveraigne medicine to cure the eares, and if 

 they be stamped and spread upon a linen rag and so ap- 

 plied, they will heale the eares, if they be hurt by any bruise 

 or contusion : Certes this is but a nastie and ill-favoured 

 vermin e, howbeit in regard of the manifold and admirable 

 properties which naturally it hath, as also of the Industrie 

 of our auncestours in searching out the nature of it, I am 

 moved to write thereof at large and to the full in this 

 place. For they have described many kinds of them. In 

 the first place, some of them be soft and tender, which 

 being sodden in oile, they have proved by experience to be 

 of great efficacie in fetching off werts, if they be annointed 

 therewith. A second sort there is, which they call Myloe- 

 con, because ordinarily it haunteth about mils and bake- 

 houses, and there breedeth : these by the report of 3Iusa 

 and Pidon, two famous Physicians, being bruised (after 

 their heads were gone) and applied to a bodie infected with 

 the leprosie, cured the same persitely. They of a third 

 kind, besides that they bee otherwise ill-favoured ynough, 

 carrie a loathsome and odious smell with them : they are 

 sharp rumped and pin buttockt also; howbeit, being in- 

 eorporat with the oile of pitch called Pisselseon, they have 

 healed those ulcers which were thought nunquam sana, and 

 incurable. Also within one and twenty dales after this pias- 

 tre laid too, it hath been knowne to cure the swelling wens 

 called the King's evil : the botches or biles named Pani, 

 wounds, contusions, bruises, morimals, scabs, and fellons : 

 but then their feet and wings were plucked off and cast 

 away. I make no doubt or question, but that some of us 

 are so daintie and fine-eared, that our stomacke riseth at 

 the hearing onely of such medicines : and yet I assure you, 



