304 PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 



In French country districts insects may also cause grave 

 injuries. Though not possessing a venom of such pro- 

 nounced activity as that of serpents, they may, by their num- 

 bers, cause formidable cutaneous lesions which may prove 

 fatal. They operate by their sting, with which they pene- 

 trate the tissues. Bees, wasps and hornets have a hollow 

 sting, out of which flows the product of a contractile vesicle 

 situated at its base. This product is a very active, deleter- 

 ious liquid that produces an intense burning, sensation. 

 Gadflies are equally dreadful insects, and certain other flies 

 are known to produce fatalities by their sting. Robellet re- 

 ports serious injuries to a cow from flies that were engaged 

 in despoiling the carcasses of putrefying moles. Gnats should 

 also be classed in the category of dangerous insects. In 

 1863 Tisserand was called upon to report upon the ravages 

 among cattle made by the Simulium maculatum. This in- 

 sect, very abundant in the neighborhood of Lyons at that 

 period, atacked solipeds and bovines. The small ruminants 

 were less afifected. The animals were stung where the skin 

 is thin — the udder, the belly, etc. Independently of ser- 

 pents and insects, there is observed in France, notably among 

 dogs, injuries due to the sting of the scorpion. The black 

 scorpion of the Indies, a giant species, is so veiy dangerous 

 that its bite is always invariably fatal to human beings, and 

 the domestic animals seldom survive its sting. In the Dan- 

 ubian countries, especially in Hungary, Servia and Rou- 

 mania, the gnat of Kolumbaty made veritable ravages. It 

 was looked upon as a scourge. In spring, about the end of 

 April and in May, it descends into the valleys in such great 

 numbers as to form thick clouds, which rush upon the herd 

 of bufifalo kept upon the banks of the Danube. It attacks 

 the buffalo, the ox and the horse, which it stings in the nos- 

 trils and the insides of the thigh with such fury that every 

 animal stung is doomed. Cases of recovery are exception- 



