140 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



larvaj had been swallowed alive, along with 

 such vegetable food as had been introduced in 

 the ordinary course of nature into the stomach ; 

 the other by our friend Dr. Wilson, of Quincy, 

 who expresses his belief that a few larva; had 

 been introduced through the mouth, and that 

 then after getting into the alimentary canal had 

 increased and multiplied there. We must crave 

 leave to ditt'er from both these gentlemen. In 

 the first place, we can scarcely understand how 

 larvffi of such considerable size and of so soft a 

 consistence could escape being crushed more or 

 less by the human teeth during the process of 

 mastication; and in (he second place, although 

 in the whole Class of Insects there is a single 

 most remarkable and exceptional genus (_3fias- 

 ^or), belonging to the (iiiW-gunt (Cecklomyia) 

 Fandly, which is knoAvu to propagate in the 

 larva state, yet this is the exception and not the 

 rule. For out of sibout a hundred thousand dis- 

 tinct genera of Insects which exist in the whole 

 world, no other genus, so ftvr as the records 

 show, has the reproductive faculty developed 

 until it reaches the mature or Perfect State. 

 For these reason?:, we incline to believe that 

 larv£e discharged from the human body, in the 

 manner recited above, must all of them have 

 been originally introduced there in the egg 

 state, and after reaching the stomach must have 

 hatched out and fed upon the food taken from 

 time to time into the stomach. No doubt, the 

 great majority of eggs that are swallowed in 

 this manner, even if Ihey escape being crushed 

 by the teeth, perish in the healthy human body, 

 cither before, or shortly after batching out, 

 owing to the unnatural conditions to which 

 they are necessarily subjected there, both as 

 regards temperature, and want of air, and the 

 presence of that powerful chemical agent — the 

 gastric juice. But in a diseased and abnormal 

 body, it may, and doubtless does, occasionally 

 happen, that the average temperature of the 

 stomach is reduced much below the normal 

 point, or that large quantities of gaseous matter 

 containing oxygen are formed there, or that an 

 insufficient supply of gastric juice is secreted 

 there : and in sucli instances as these, the eggs 

 may probably hatch out, and the young larviB 

 may, without any material injury to their health, 

 grow and reach maturity. 



It is not a very plea?ant thing to have a 

 stomach full of lively living maggots. Still, it 

 should be borne in mind that, although such 

 maggots may temporarily derange the health, 

 there is no reason to suppose that they can ever 

 cause death. Moreover, when more or less 

 matured, such insects will always pass away, 



either dead or alive, by the ordinary modes in 

 which such offensive matter is ejected from the 

 human system ; for it is utterly impossible that 

 they can ever after developing into the perfect 

 winged state, propagate their species among 

 the semi-finid contents of the alimentary canal. 

 Consequently, unless a fresh supply of eggs is 

 introduced into the stomach, the original gene- 

 ration of maggots will soon disappear; for with 

 almost all the different larvas of Two-winged 

 Flies that subsist upon decaying matter, whether 

 animal or vegetable, the larval period is com- 

 paratively quite short — say two or three weeks, 

 or at most a mo.ith. 



The nature of the substances upon which the 

 larvae usually discharged from the human body 

 naturally feed — that is, decaying animal and 

 especially decaying vegetable matter— indicates 

 at once the manner in which the eggs that 

 produce these larva; gain admission into the 

 stomach. Wc have already stated that we have 

 bred great numbersof a small species of Flat-fly 

 from rotten plums; and we may add here that 

 the plums from which we bred the Fly were 

 most of them only partially unsound when they 

 were gathered and placed in the Breeding-vase, 

 and that after they were placed there no living 

 insect could possibly have gained access to them 

 in order to lay its eggs upon them. Conse- 

 quently, a good many of the eggs which after- 

 wards produced the Winged Flat-flies must iu 

 .ill probability have been deposited in the open 

 air upon plums that were only partially un- 

 sound—say with only a third or a lourth part 

 of their flesh discolored and soft. Such fruit 

 would be greedily devoured by many children, 

 and by some grown persons who do not know 

 any better. But we have ascertained by a some- 

 what extensive experience in breeding insects, 

 that fruit (vhich is either wholly or partially 

 decayed almost invariably contains great num- 

 bers of the eggs of difJ'erent Two-winged Flies, 

 belonging to many different genera (Sciara, 

 Scatopse, Dros(rplula, Ilomalomyia, and Mus- 

 ca), the larva' of which naturally feed upon such 

 substances. When, therefore, such decayed fruit 

 is introduced into the human stomach, these 

 eggs, being excessively minute, will doubtless 

 many of them pass uninjured into the body: 

 and if that body happens to beiu a diseased and 

 unhealthy state, they will prob.ably hatch out 

 and develop into a whole generation of larvae 



In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, per- 

 haps, these intestinal larvre will be voided with- 

 out being noticed by any one ; and the functional 

 disturbance which they have caused will be 

 attributed to cholera morbus, or summer com- 



