REMEDIES FOR THE BEE-STING. 59 



compaiiied often with cold trembling of the limbs, and a 

 fearful smarting pain where the sting has been inserted, a 

 pain similar to that caused by the bite of the cobra. In a 

 few moments the poison is taken up, and circulated with 

 the blood over the whole system, although the smarting 

 and swelling are experienced only in the place or part where 

 the wound has been made ; this is easily perceived by the 

 flesh being slightly raised, like a small wart, and very white, 

 showing that some deadly poison is at work. On each side 

 of the sting, from the point downwards, are four small barbs 

 or teeth, resembling, when seen beneath the microscope, 

 the edge of a fine saw. The bee-sting differs from that of 

 the wasp and hornet in this particular : the wasp, having 

 no barbs, or much smaller ones, can sting frequently with- 

 out either injuring itself or losing its sting ; not so the 

 honey-bee. In ninety-nine cases out of every hundred it 

 loses its sting, and with it a part of the intestines, which 

 naturally results in its death. Archdeacon Paley, in his 

 Natural Theology, gives a good description of the bee-sting . 

 " The action of the sting affords an example of the union 

 of chemistry and mechanism: of chemistry in respect to 

 the venom which can produce such fearful effects ; of 

 mechanism, as the sting is a compound instrument. The 

 machinery would have been comparatively useless had it 

 not been for the chemical process by which, in the insect's 

 body, honey is converted into poison ; and, on the other 

 hand, the poison would have been ineffectual without an 

 instrument to wound, and a syringe to inject it. Upon 

 examining the edge of a very keen razor by the micro- 

 scope, it appears as broad as the back of a pretty thick 

 knife : rough, uneven, and full of notches and furrows, and 

 so far from anything like sharpness, that an instrument as 

 blunt as this seemed to be would not serve even to cleave 

 wood. An exceedingly smaU needle being also examined. 



