DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 138 



that is known; for he describes it as much smaller than a 

 bug. The only remedy to which the natives have recourse 

 for preventing the ill effects arising from its venom is, on 

 the first appearance of the swelling, to swing the patient 

 over the flame of straw or long grass, which they do with 

 great dexterity : after this operation he is reckoned to be 

 out of danger. — The poisoned arrows which Indians em- 

 ploy against their enemies have been long celebrated. 

 The Coya may, in the western world, have furnished 

 the poison for this purpose. An author quoted in Lesser 

 tells us that an ant as big as a bee is sometimes used, 

 and that the wound inflicted by weapons tinctured with 

 their venom is incurable. Patterson also gives a recipe by 

 which the natives of the southern extremity of Africa pre- 

 pare what they reckon the most effectual poison for the 

 point of their arrows. They mix the juice of a species 

 of Euphorbia, and a caterpillar that feeds on a kind of su- 

 mach (R/ms, L.), and when the mixture is dried it is fit 

 or use. 



And now I think you will allow that I have made out 

 a tolerable list of insects that attack or annoy man's 

 body externally, and a sufficiently doleful history of 

 them. That the subject, however, may be complete, I 

 shall next enumerate those that, not content with afflict- 

 ing him with exterior pain or evil, whether on the sur- 

 face or under the skin, bore into his flesh, descend even 

 into his stomach and viscera; derange his whole system, 

 and thus often occasion his death. The punitive in seels 

 here employed are usually larvae of the various orders, 

 and they are the cause of that genus of diseases I before 

 noticed, and proposed to call Scolechiasts* 



