102 



RARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



menced to experience slight pains in the throat, the 

 auditory duct, and in the right side of the face. At 

 the sight of these symptoms, analogous to those 

 which the malady of Josefa had presented at the 

 outset, Elisa was made to breathe a decoction of 

 basil contained in a solution of salic acid, the remedy 

 Dr. Lesbini had prescribed for her sister. These 

 inhalations, although many times repeated, did not, 

 however, give any result. As a measure of pre- 

 caution the perturbated family resolved that Elisa 

 should accompany her sister to Cordova, so as to 

 be able to take care of her in case she saw her 

 attacked with the same symptoms as herself. 



" During the evening of Saturday, the i8th 3 Dr. 

 Lesbini examined the young invalid for the first time, 

 and pronouncing it a case of myiasis, he personally 

 made injections of chloroform and the essence of 

 turpentine attenuated in water. No maggots 

 appeared in consequence of these injections, but 

 in ispite of the glimmering hope remaining from a 

 negative result, and unpersuaded by the doctor's 

 diagnostics, the family remain in the most forlorn 

 condition, for they are perfectly persuaded, whether 

 produced by a fly or not, the illness of Elisa is the 

 same as that which hurried their other child to the 

 grave, and what they endured in the case of Josefa, 

 they now feel for Elisa. 



" Sunday, the 19th, the invalid complained much of 

 pains already grown acute, and a headache becoming 

 more and more acute, and when Dr. Lesbini repeated 

 his injections in the morning, small whitish masses 

 came forth with the liquid, which resembled maggots 

 in embryo. Towards three o'clock in the afternoon 

 an injection with chloroform brought forth a living 

 grub, and the remedy was thereupon repeated several 

 times, but without any further result. At nine 

 o'clock in the evening new injections with a 

 decoction of basil were administered, and fifty grubs 

 fell from the nostrils. 



" The following days the pains continued to 

 augment in intensity. The injections were regularly 

 repeated thrice every twenty-four hours, and up to 

 Thursday, the 23rd, the maggots, in greater or less 

 numbers, continued to fall from the right nostril. 

 That day the pains beeame so intolerable, that the 

 young girl gave fearful shrieks, and implored that we 

 should rather leave her to die than torment her so. 

 On Friday, the 24th, two maggots, more developed 

 than any hitherto obtained, escaped from the nasal 

 fosse, and the invalid only gave intimation of slight 

 pains on the'right ^ide near the frontal region, in 

 spite of which two more maggots, alive and ex- 

 cessively developed, issued during the night. 

 Saturday, the 25th, the sufferer experienced no 

 pains and felt perfectly well ; at the injections with 

 the solution of salic acid she sneezed frequently, but 

 only returned masses of whitish matter, evidently 

 the shreds of the pituary membrane mangled by the 

 mandibles of the maggots. During the night a last 



maggot arrived at its maximum growth, and seeking, 

 probably, the earth to bury in and undergo its trans- 

 formation, fell from the nostril. 



"Elisa Ortiz," adds the writer, "is at present 

 radically cured, and if it were not for her emaciation, it 

 would never be supposed that she had passed through 

 so terrible an ordeal. Otherwise it is not astonishing 

 that the hideous malady in question, should have 

 left some marks on its victim, and yet the only 

 symptoms that have declared themselves hitherto, 

 are a slight tumefaction of the nose, arch of the 

 eyebrow and cheek, to which we must add, the 

 sneezings, bleedings at the nose, and the evacuation 

 through the right nostril of a bloody-purulent mucus 

 with an infectious odour. Thus marred and dis- 

 figured in the pride of beauty, the young Spaniard 

 returned to her village, recluse in the southern 

 continent of the new world, promising never again to 

 be seen in such a condition." 



In the interest of science Senor Conil made a study 

 of the maggots that had thus surely struck their 

 quarry as lambs for the slaughter, and to this end the 

 twenty which had remained alive from the injections 

 of the 19th of January, and which had attained five 

 millimetres, or about the fifth part of an inch, in 

 length, were collected in a glass. These were then 

 fed on meat, which it was found necessary to change 

 daily, on account of the viscous green liquor which 

 they emitted accelerating putrifaction, an operation 

 demanding not a little exercise of fortitude on the 

 part of the delicately organised operator. This 

 process was continued until the 23rd of January when, 

 instead of penetrating the fresh meat as was their 

 custom, the maggots commenced to roam restlessly 

 until arrested as though paralyzed, they remained 

 motionless, surrounded with a viscous yellow sub- 

 stance. The next day five had assumed the form of 

 chrysalides, which, at the expiration of another eleven 

 days, turned to flies resembling the common blue- 

 bottle, of a metallic green colour with blue reflections. 

 Here, as is commonly the case, the labours of the 

 entomologist terminated, for although it was sur- 

 mised that the uniting of the sexes was witnessed in 

 the breeding- cage, it was not possible to induce the 

 females to oviposit, and so monograph their entire 

 history, concerning which ample detail is given. 

 These flies, to distinguish them from the European 

 blue-bottle and cogeners, have received the very 

 shocking name of man-eaters, CallipJiora anthropo- 

 phaga. 



In the early days of colonisation, when a poetic 

 fancy clothed the face of the Argentine landscape 

 with fables drawn from a classic source, or the 

 inharmonious haze cheated the sense, and every 

 object was a new marvel, these terrible scourges of 

 humanity gave rise to a somewhat prodigious story 

 detailed by Mr. Kirby. In Paraguay, he tells us, 

 the flesh-flies are said to be uncommonly numerous 

 and noxious. Azara relates that after a storm when 



