Insect miscellanies / [Anon].

Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect miscellanies / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    208/452 (page 186)
    \ 186 INSECT MISCELLANIES. . one only, as there are hundreds more to revenge their companion’s fate ; so that the person who thus is sub-_ ject to be bitten (some individuals are exempt) remains the whole night like a sentinel upon duty, rather ~ watching the approach of fresh invaders than inviting the pleasing approaches of sleep.?* Mouffet assures us, that against those enemies of our rest in the night our merciful God hath furnished us with remedies, - which we may fetch out of old and new writers, either to drive them away or kill them. t The following is given as the best poison for bugs, by Mr Brande of the Royal Institution :— Reduce an ounce of corrosive sublimate (Perchloride of mercury), and one ounce of white arsenic, to a fine powder ; mix with it one ounce of muriate of ammonia in powder, two ounces each of oil of turpentine and yellow wax, and eight ounces of olive oil: put all these into a pipkin, placed in a pan of boiling water, and when the wax is melted, stir the whole, till cold, in a mortar. [ Though most people, however, dislike this insect, others regard it not only with apathy but with pro- tecting care; at least, one gentleman would never suffer them to be disturbed, or his bedsteads removed, till in the end they swarmed to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room ; and after his death, millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture. § Inthe Banian hospital, at Surat, the overseers are said frequently to hire beggars from the streets, at a stipulated sum, to pass the night among bugs and other vermin, on the express con- dition of suffermg them to enjoy their feast without molestation. || | The bed-bug is not the only one of its congeners which preys upon man, St Pierre mentions a bug, * Goldsmith, Anim, Nature, iv, 198. + Theatr. Insect. + Materia Medica, Index. § Nicholson’s Journ. xvii, 40. | Forbes, Oriental Mem. i.