DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 71 
deleterious quality of the juices of this insect, it is the most venomous 
animal that is known; for he describes it as much smaller than a bug. 
The only remedy to which the natives have recourse for preveuting 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.1— The poisoned arrows which Indians employ 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 receipt by which the natives of the southern extremity of 
Africa prepare what they reckon the most effectual poison for the point of 
their arrows. They mix the juice of a species of Huphorbia, and a cater- 
pillar that feeds on a kind of sumach (Rfus L.), and when the mixture is 
dried it is fit for 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 afflicting him with 
exterior pain or evil, whether on the sunface 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 insects here 
employed are usually larva of the various orders, and they are the cause 
of that genus of diseases I before noticed, and proposed to call Schole- 
chiasis, 
I shall begin my account with the first order of Linné, because people in 
general seem not aware that any dcetles make their way into the human 
stomach. Yet there is abundant evidence, which proves beyond contro- 
versy that the meal-worm (Zenebrio Molitor), although its usual food is 
flour, has often been voided both by male and female patients ; and in one 
instance is stated to have occasioned death.’ How these grubs should 
get into the stomach it is difficult to say — peghaps the eggs may have been 
swallowed in some preparation of four. But that the animal should be 
able to sustain the heat of this organ, so far exceeding the temperature to 
which it is usually accustomed, is the most extraordinary circumstance of 
all, —Dr. Martin Lister, who to the skill of the physician added the most 
1 Ulloa’s Voyage, b. vi. c.8. Hamilton (Travels in Colombia, as quoted in the 
Literary Gazette, April 28. 1827) also mentions a spider called the Cauya, rather 
large, found in the broken ground and among the rocks, from the body of which a 
poison so active is emitted, that men and mules have died in an hour or two after 
the venomous moisture had fallen on them. This is evidently the same insect 
ao that mentioned by Ulloa, and confirms the above account of its venomous 
effects, 
2 Waterton (Wanderings in S. America, 53.) gives the recipe by which the 
Macousho Indians prepare the poison in which they dip their arrows. It consists 
of a vine called the Wourali, which is the principal ingredient; the roots and 
stalks vf some other plants; two species of ants, the sting of one of which is so 
Venomous that it produces a fever; a quantity of the strongest Indian pepper (Cap- 
sicum), aud the pounded fangs of two kinds of serpents. 
5 Tulpius, Obs. Med. 1. ii. ¢.51. t.7. £3. Zdinb, Med. and Surg. Journ, 
n. ae 42—48. Derham, Physic. Theol. 878. note 6. Lowthorp, Philcs. Trans, 
ul, 188, 
F +t 
