AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



79 



cQuntrles, have reported extraordinary instances of flies, 

 beetles, &c. working out their way from different parts of 

 the humane frame. 



Mr. Clark mentions a case in which the gad-fly of the ox 

 appears to have left its accustomed prey, and deposited its 

 eo-o-s in the jaw of a woman, who eventually died of disease 

 produced by the botts which sprung from the eggs. Leeu- 

 wenhoeck obtained maggots from a glandular swelling on 

 the lea- of a woman. These he fed with flesh till they 

 assumed the pupa state, and afterwards produced a perfect 

 insect as large as a flesh-fly. Lempriere, in his work on 

 the Diseases of the Jlrmy in Jamaica, records the case of 

 a lady, who, after recovering from a dangerous fever, died 

 a victim to the maggots of a large blue fly, which sometimes 

 buzzes about the sick in the West Indies, and which, in 

 the case alluded to, made their way from the nose through 

 the OS cribriforme, and so to the brain. A revolting in- 

 stance of scholechiasis is narrated in Bell's Weekly Mes- 

 senger, as quoted by Messrs. Kirby and Spence. A pauper, 

 of the name of Page, was in the habit of secreting the 

 remnants of his food betwixt his shirt and skin. On one 

 occasion, a piece of flesh was so concealed, when the poor 

 man was taken ill and laid himself down to repose in a 

 field in the parish of Scredington. The weather being hot, 

 the meat speedily became putrescent, and was blown by 

 the flies. The maggots, which were, of course, hatched 

 almost immediately, after devouring the meat, proceeded to 

 prey upon the body of the pauper, whose still living form, 

 when discovered by some neighbouring inhabitants, present- 

 ed a most appalling spectacle. He was carried to a surgeon, 

 but died a few hours after the first dressing of his wounds. 



These, and other similar cases, ought not to be considered 

 so much in the light of ordinary or natural effects, as the 

 result of accidents produced by filth and disease. It is 

 otherwise, however, with the gad-flies, whose natural habit 

 appears to be to deposit their eggs beneath the skin, or 

 among the hairs of quadrupeds, in a healthy or unimpaired 

 condition. Although systematic authors have described an 

 (Estrus hominis, said to deposit its eggs beneath the 

 skin of man, and to produce ulcers, which sometimes prove 

 fatal, yet nothing seems to have been added of late to these 

 vague indications, in illustration of its real history. 



The following is an authentic instance, which lately 

 occurred to our knowledge, and with the particulars of 

 which we were favoured by Dr. A. Hill, of Greenock. 

 George Killock, steward of the ship Cecilia, while in the 

 harbour of George Town, Demerara, during the month of 

 September, 1838, felt an extreme itching in a spot situated 

 on the lower and back part of the right arm, which he 

 frequently rubbed and scratched. The feeling was quite 

 different from that caused by the bite of the musquito or 



sand-fly, with which he was sufiiciently familiar. Ere 

 long, something like a bile or indolent tumour formed, 

 which occasioned great pain, as if a sharp instrument had 

 been thrust into the arm, or as if suppuration was going on 

 at the bones. This extreme pain came on periodically in 

 paroxysms, and the arm was poulticed for a length of time. 

 The swelling was not so great as to affect the movements 

 of the joint, and as there was no appearance of its corning 

 to a point, applications were given up. One day, about 

 five weeks after the commencement of the pain, Killock 

 observed some bloody matter on his shirt sleeve, which he 

 showed to the captain, when the latter distinctly perceived 

 something in motion in the centre of a small orifice, which 

 had become apparent on the tumour. The motion increased, 

 till, to his surprise, the head of an insect protruded itself; 

 and this it continued to do daily, though the animal was 

 observed to withdraw into its burrow when any one came 

 near, or even pointed at it. The pain at this time was so 

 acute as to cause sickness. The chamber of the insect 

 seemed exactly to fit its bodjr, and merely admitted of its 

 motions outwards and inwards. It occasionally discharged 

 a quantity of blood-coloured matter. Many attempts were 

 made to seize it, but it always instantly retreated, and the 

 captain, not knowing but what it partook of the nature of 

 the Guinea worm, with which he was well acquainted, was 

 fearful of a forced extraction, lest it should break asunder, 

 and leave a principal portion in the wound. However, it 

 was observed to protrude more and more of its body everv 

 day, and, upon one occasion, it came out to the length of 

 more than an inch. At last it dropt out of its own accord 

 upon the cabin floor, with a noise resembling that which a 

 pebble would make on falling on the ground. It kept mov- 

 ing and turning about for some time, like an earth-worm, 

 but, ere long, shrunk into nearly half its previous size. The 

 atmosphere was at this time cool, the ship being within 

 a week's sail of Greenock. The insect lived for three days, 

 and was then put into spirits, after which it shrunk still 

 more. Calculating from the period at which the itching 

 was first felt, it had lived in Killock's arm, in the larva 

 state, for about six weeks; The wound healed readily, 

 leaving externally the appearance of a small scar. 



In the 12th edition of the Systema Naturse, there is no 

 mention of this insect. Gmelin, however, says, that it 

 dwells beneath the skin of the abdomen six months, pene- 

 trating deeper if it be disturbed, and becoming so dangerous 

 as sometimes to occasion death. In Dr. Turton's General 

 System of Nature, there is the following notice of this 

 insect, or of one of which the habits are similar. " CEsfris 

 hominis. Body entirely brown. Inhabits South America, 

 Linne ap. Pall, Nord. Beytr. p. 157. Deposits its eggj 

 under the skin, on the bellies of the natives; the larva, if 



