IIQ DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



bornby, and a surgeon was immediately procured, \^o declared that his 

 body was in such a state that dressing it must be little short of instantane- 

 ous death ; and in fact the man did survive the operation but a few hours. 

 When first found, and again when examined by the surgeon, he presented 

 a sight loathsome in the extreme ; white maggots of enormous size were 

 crawling in and upon his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, 

 and the removing of the external ones served only to render the sight 

 more horrid."^ — A medical friend of mine, at Ipswich, gave me this win- 

 ter an apode larva, voided by a person of that place with his urine, which 

 I now preserve in spirits, and can show you when you visit me. It 

 appears to me to belong to the Diptera order, yet not to the fly tribes 

 {Tanystoma Latr.), but rather to the TipularicB of that author, with which 

 liowcver it docs not seem to agree so entirely as to take away all doubt. 

 It is a very singular larva, and I can find none in any author that I have 

 had an opportunity of consulting which at all resembles it. That you 

 may know it, should you chance to meet with it, I shall here describe it. 

 Body, three fourths of an inch in length, and about a line in breadth ; 

 opaque, of a pale yellow color; cylindrical, tapering somewhat at each 

 extremity ; consisting of twenty articulations without the head : head red- 

 dish brown, heart-shaped, much smaller than the following joint ; armed 

 with two unguiform mandibles ; with a biarticulate palpus attached exte- 

 riorly to the base of each. These mandibles appear to be moved by a 

 narrow black central tendon under the dorsal skin, terminating a little 

 beyond the base of the first segment ; besides this, there are four others, 

 two on each side of it, the outer ones diverging, much slenderer, and very 

 short. The last or anal joint of the body very minute ; exserting two 

 short, filiform horns, or rather respiratory organs. I could discover, in this 

 animal, no respiratory plates, such as are found in the larvae of Muscidce 

 8^c., nor were the tracheae visible. When given to me, it was alive and 

 extremely activ^e, writhing itself into various contortions with great agility. 

 It moved, like other dipterous larvae, by means of its mandibles. Upon 

 wetting my fingers more than once, to take it up when it had fallen from 

 a table upon which it was placed, the saline taste with which it was imbued 

 was so powerful that it was some time before it was dissipated from my 

 mouth.^ I shall only mention one more instance, because it is a singular 

 one. The larva of Helojihilus pendulus, a fly peculiarly formed by nature 

 for inhabiting j^j«Vs, has been found in the stomach of a woman.^ 



Yon Avill smile when I tell you that I have met with the prescription of 

 a famous urine-doctor, in which he recommends to his credulous patient 

 to take a certain number of soiv bugs per diem, by this name distinguish- 

 ing, as I suppose, the pillmillepede (Armadillo viilgaris), once a very 

 favorite remedy. What effect they produced in this case I was not inform- 

 ed ; but the learned Bonnet relates that he had seen a certificate of an 

 English physician, dated July 1763, stating that, some time before, a 



' In passing through this parish in the springof 1814,1 inquired of the mail-coachman 

 whether he had heard of this story ; and he said the fact was well known. 



* Specimens of a dipterous larva, of which, like the above, several had been discharged 

 with the urine of a patient, were exhibited to the Entomological Society, April 4, 1840, by 

 Professor Owen, who pointed out the great singularity of the case, and the difficulty of 

 accounting for the existence of the larva in the bladder. (Proceedings of Ent. Soc. Lond. 

 p. 7.) 3 pkiios. Mag. ix. 366. 



