Larva of an Insect in the Human Stomach. IS 
bands of black and brown, longitudinally extended, and the long 
hairs, belong to larvae of the numerous Phalenae or moths, as 
well as certain Tipula^, in this country termed Dragon Flies 
by the country people. 
Here one cannot but regret the too common custom of entomo- 
logists neglecting the appearance and structure of insects in this 
first period of their existence, in which they are countenanced 
by De Geer, whose labours are otherwise so valuable in this part 
of the history of Nature. But, granting the difficulties that must 
be encountered in numberless instances, and that the characters 
of the insect in the last and perfect state of its existence should 
constitute the great basis of a philosophical arrangement ; still, 
without a far more extensive acquaintance with the larvae of the 
various tribes, their structure, economy, and those singular pro- 
perties, in which they so widely differ, not only from the whole of 
the vermes, but among themselves, entomology must be con- 
sidered as extremely defective in its application to what consti- 
tutes the great and ultimate object of all the sciences,— human 
wants. 
1. It is in this their primary state, that these apparently con- 
temptible creatures come into perpetual collison with our closest 
interests: frequently bred amongst, they devour our various ali- 
ments, and what they do not consume, they corrupt and render 
useless by their filth. In this way, no doubt, they are taken in 
occasionally with our food, or are admitted into the various ac- 
cessible cavities of the body. 
2. The larva of a carnivorous beetle, sent to me from Invera- 
ray, not merely lived, but moved briskly in strong alkohol, the 
day after it was enclosed in a phial filled with that liquor. Bon- 
net found that the larva of Papilio Brassicce , frozen under a tem- 
perature of 14° Fahrenheit’s Thermometer, revived perfectly on 
being thawed. This inconceivable tenacity of life, under the 
most opposite extremes, renders this part of entomology an ob- 
ject of peculiar interest to the physician. 
3. The ova of certain species have been proved to be, if pos- 
sible, still more indestructible, under very great extremes of 
temperature and differences of situation. In the case above 
stated, the ovum must have been hatched, and the larva have 
attained to full size, in the stomach of the patient, excluded 
