PIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 107 



those that, not content with afflicting him with exterior pain 

 or evil, whether on the surface 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 larvas of the 

 various orders, and they are the cause of that genus of dis- 

 eases I before noticed, and proposed to call Scolechiasis, 



I shall begin my account with the first order of Linne, 

 because people in general seem not aware that any beetles 

 make their way into the human stomach. Yet there is 

 abundant evidence, which proves beyond controversy that 

 the meal-worm ( Tenehrio 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 — perhaps the eggs may have been swallowed in some 

 preparation of flour. But that the animal should be able to 

 sustain the heat of this organ, so far exceeding the tempera- 

 ture to which it is usually accustomed, is the most extra- 

 ordinary circumstance of all. — Dr. Martin Lister, who to the 

 skill of the physician added the most profound knowledge of 

 nature, mentions an instance, communicated to him by 

 Mr. Jessop, of a girl who voided three hexapod larvse similar 

 to what are found in the carcases of birds ^, probably be- 

 longing either to the genus Dermestes, or Anthrenus : and in 

 the German Ephemerides the case also of a girl is recorded, 

 from an abscess in the calf of whose leg crept black worms 

 resembling beetles.^ 



The larvae of some beetle, as appears from the description, 

 seem to have been ejected even from the lungs. Four of 

 these, of which the largest was nearly three quarters of an 

 inch long, were discovered in the mucus expelled after a 

 severe fit of coughing by a lady afflicted with a pulmonary 

 disease ; and similar larvae of a smaller size were once after- 

 wards discharged in the same way. 



1 Tulpius, Ohs. Med. 1. ii. c. 51. t. 7. f. 3. Edinh. Med. and Surg. Journ. 

 n. 35. 42—48. Derham, Physic. Theol. 378. note h. Lowthorp, Phihs. Trans. 

 iii. 135. 



2 Philos. Trans. \665, x. 391. Shaw's Ahridg. ii. 224. 



3 Mead, Med. Sacr. 105. 4 London Medical Review, v. 340. 



