﻿292 The Philippine Journal of Science lau 



twenty minutes and were especially severe, making breathing 

 very difficult at times. In about half an hour the heart action 

 became very feeble, and the patient was semiconscious for a 

 period of about fifteen minutes, during which time the pulse 

 could be detected with difficulty. Although the patient had been 

 given 3 doses of whisky, it was thought necessary to administer 

 by mouth a dose of %o grain of strychnine, after which the 

 heart action improved. 



The pain from the sting was immediate and severe, and prob- 

 ably because the surface affected was so great seemed general 

 in the feet and legs, the patient saying that it was like the pain 

 of a very severe burn. The patient was confined to bed for 

 five days, and found it difficult to move about freely for several 

 weeks thereafter, owing to the increase of pain and a return 

 of the swelling and at first to a recurrence of the muscular 

 contractions. The nervous shock was great, and the patient did 

 not fully recover from it for two months or more. The imme- 

 diate shock and effect of the poison was so great that, although 

 the sting was inflicted in shallow water only a few meters from 

 shore, the patient was only able to reach shore with the aid of 

 fellow-bathers and had to be carried from the shore on a 

 stretcher. Such a sting if inflicted in deep water would be a 

 very serious matter aside from its after effects because of the 

 immediate danger of drowning. 



The stings were treated locally at first with alcohol and vinegar 

 and then with a dressing made of soda and olive oil. The natives 

 suggested vinegar and sugar. Later, the affected parts were 

 wrapped in cloths moistened with a 2 per cent aqueous solution 

 of cocaine which, however, gave no perceptible relief. 



The jellyfish which inflicted these stings belongs to the order 

 Carybdeidse, formerly called Cubomedusse because of the squared 

 or cubical shape of the bell; the species of this order are some- 

 times known as "sea wasps" because of their reputation as 

 stingers. These jellyfish are very different from the more typ- 

 ical medusae of the order Semaeostomese of which the small 

 white form with long oral palps and slender marginal tentacles, 

 common in Manila Bay at certain seasons of the year, may be 

 taken as an example. For reasons stated in a recent paper on 

 Philippine Scyphomedusae,^ I consider this medusa to be the 

 "Chrysaora stage" of Dactylometra quinquecirrha L. Agassiz.* 

 This is the common "sea nettle" of the Atlantic coast of the 



" This Journal, Sec. D (1914), 9, 198. 

 •Mayer, Ibid. (1910), 3, 585-588. 



