DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



113 



his Cosmocritica, p. 241., says that on dissecting the brain of 

 a woman there were found in it abundance of vermicles and 

 punaises} 



It was customary in many countries in ancient times to 

 punish certain malefactors by exposing them to be devoured 

 by wild beasts : but to expose them to insects for the same 

 purpose was a refinement in cruelty, which seems to have been 

 pecuHar to the despots of Persia. We are informed that the 

 most severe punishment amongst the Persians was that of 

 shutting up the offender between two boats of equal size ; 

 they laid him in one of them upon his back, and covered him 

 with the other, his hands, feet, and head being left bare. His 

 face, which was placed full in the sun, they moistened with 

 honey, thus inviting the flies and wasps, which tormented him 

 no less than the swarms of maggots that were bred in his 

 excrements and body, and devoured him to the very entrails. 

 He was compelled to take as much food as was necessary to 

 support life, and thus existed sometimes for several days. 

 Plutarch informs us, that Mithridates, whom Artaxerxes 

 Longimanus condemned to this punishment, lived seventeen 

 days in the utmost agony ; and that, the uppermost boat 

 being taken off at his death, they found his flesh all consumed, 

 and' myriads of worms gnawing his bowels.^ Could any na- 

 tural objects be made more horrible and effectual instruments 

 of torture than insects were in this most diabolical invention 

 of tyranny ? ^ 



In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I must 



1 Mem. Apterolog. 79. 2 Universal History, iv. 70. ed. 1779. 



3 For numerous cases of Insects occasionall)' found in the human body, see a 

 very valuable paper in Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. 257. by the Rev. F. W. Hope, 

 F'. R. S., in which tlie whole are brought together in a tabular form, so that the 

 kind of insect, the local affection, and vai-ious other particulars, can be seen at a 

 glance. Mr. Hope proposes to adopt the term Canthariasis for those diseases 

 which originate with coleopterous insects, whether in the perfect or larva state; 

 that of Mijasis for those caused by dipterous larvae, while he restricts the form 

 Scholechiasis to those resulting from lopidopterous larvee. Of the first (in- 

 cluding two cases arising from the earwig), he enumerates thirty-eight cases ; of 

 the second, sixty-four ; and of the third, seven. He suggests that tlie eggs of many 

 of these larvfe have been introduced into the stomach with bread, butter, cheese, 

 and even upon cooked food, upon vv^hich they have been deposited by the parent 

 beetles or flies in our larders and cellars, &c. ; others with ripe fruit or raw 

 vegetables, as lettuces, watercresses, &c., and others again in impure and turbid 

 water. 



VOL. I. 



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