79 
AND AMERICAN I 
countries, have reported extraordinary instances of flies, 
beetles, &c. working out their way from different parts of 
the human frame. 
Mr. Clark mentions a case in which the gad-fly of the ox 
appears to have left its accustomed prey, and deposited its 
eggs in the jaw of a woman, who eventually died of disease 
produced by the botts which sprung from the eggs. Leeu- 
wenhoeck obtained maggots from a glandular swelling on 
the leg of a woman. These he fed with flesh till they 
assumed the pupa state, and afterwards produced a perfect 
insect as large as a flesh-fly. Lempriere, in his work on 
the Diseases of the Army in Jamaica , records the case of 
a lady, who, after recovering from a dangerous fever, died 
a victim to the maggots of a large blue fly, which sometimes 
buzzes about the sick in the West Indies, and which, in 
the case alluded to, made their way from the nose through 
the os cribriforme, and so to the brain. A revolting in- 
stance of scholechiasis is narrated in Bell’s Weekly Mes- 
senger, as quoted by Messrs. Kirby and Spence. A pauper, 
of the name of Page, was in the habit of secreting the 
remnants of his food betwixt his shirt and skin. On one 
occasion, a piece of flesh was so concealed, when the poor 
man was taken ill and laid himself down to repose in a 
field in the parish of Scredington. The weather being hot, 
the meat speedily became putrescent, and was blown by 
the flies. The maggots, whieh were, of course, hatched 
almost immediately, after devouring the meat, proceeded to 
prey upon the body of the pauper, whose still living form, 
when discovered by some neighbouring inhabitants, present- 
ed a most appalling spectacle. He was carried to a surgeon, 
but died a few hours after the first dressing of his wounds. 
These, and other similar cases, ought not to be considered 
so much in the light of ordinary or natural effects, as the 
result of accidents produced by filth and disease. It is 
otherwise, however, with the gad-flies, whose natural habit 
appears to be to deposite their eggs beneath the skin, or 
among the hairs of quadrupeds, in a healthy or unimpaired 
condition. Although systematic authors have described an 
CEstrus hominis, said to deposite its eggs beneath the 
skin of man, and to produce ulcers, which sometimes prove 
fatal, yet nothing seems to have been added of late to these 
vague indications, in illustration of its real history. 
The following is an authentic instance, which lately 
occurred to our knowledge, and with the particulars of 
which we were favoured by Dr. A. Hill, of Greenock. 
George Killock, steward of the ship Cecilia, while in the 
harbour of George Town, Demerara, during the month of 
September, 1828, felt an extreme itching in a spot situated 
on the lower and back part of the right arm, which he 
frequently rubbed and scratched. The feeling was quite 
different from that caused by the bite of the musquito or 
LURAL SPORTS. 
sand-fly, with which he was sufficiently familiar. Ere 
long, something like a boil or indolent tumour formed, 
which occasioned great pain, as if a sharp instrument had 
been thrust into the arm, or as if suppuration was going on 
at the bones. This extreme pain came on periodically in 
paroxysms; and the arm was poulticed for a length of time. 
The swelling was not so great as to affect the movements 
of the joint, and as there was no appearance of its coming 
to a point, applications were given up. One day, about 
five weeks after the commencement of the pain, Kellock 
observed some bloody matter on his shirt sleeve, which he 
showed to the captain, when the latter distinctly perceived 
something in motion in the centre of a small orifice, which 
had become apparent on the tumour. The motion increased, 
till, to his surprise, the head of an insect protruded itself; 
and this it continued to do daily, though the animal was 
observed to withdraw into its burrow when any one came 
near, or even pointed at it. The pain at this time was so 
acute as to cause sickness. The chamber of the insect 
seemed exactly to fit its body, and merely admitted of its 
motions outwards and inwards. It occasionally discharged 
a quantity of blood-coloured matter. Many attempts were 
made to seize it, but it always instantly retreated, and the 
captain, not knowing but that it partook of the nature of 
the Guinea worm, with which he was well acquainted, was 
fearful of a forced extraction, lest it should break asunder, 
and leave a principal portion in the wound. However, it 
was observed to protrude more and more of its body every 
day, and, upon one occasion, it came out to the length of 
more than an inch. At last it dropt out of its own accord 
upon the cabin-floor, with a noise resembling that which a 
pebble would make on falling on the ground. It kept mo- 
ving and turning about for some time, like an earth-worm, 
but, ere long, shrunk into nearly half its previous size. The 
atmosphere was at this time cool, the ship being within 
a week’s sail of Greenock. The insect lived for three days, 
and was then put into spirits, after which it shrunk still 
more. Calculating from the period at which the itching 
was first felt, it had lived in Killock’s arm, in the larva 
state, for about six weeks. The wound healed readily, 
leaving externally the appearance of a small scar. 
In the 12th edition of the Systema Naturae, there is no 
mention of this insect. Gmelin, however, says, that it 
dwells beneath the skin of the abdomen six months, pene- 
trating deeper if it be disturbed, and becoming so dangerous 
as sometimes to occasion death. In Dr. Turton’s General 
System of Nature, there is the following notice of this 
insect, or of one of which the habits are similar. “CEstrus 
hominis. Body entirely brown. Inhabits South America, 
Linne ap. Pall, Nord. Beytr. p. 157. Deposites its eggs 
under the skin, on the bellies of the natives; the larva, if 
