BI-ENT300 PESTS, PLAGUES AND POLITICS
LECTURE 21
revision - 2002
INSECTS AND THE PHYSICIAN
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[This is separate from the "concept" of medical entomology, which deals with the insects of medical importance, primarily as vectors.]
Insects and Medicine a long and relatively well documented history.
Dipterous Larva as agents of antisepsis!!!
Accidentally discovered on the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War (and most probably before)
Termed "Wound Myiasis"
Flies Responsible:
Order Diptera - Family Calliphoridae - the BLOW FLIES!!!!
In the larval stage they feed upon dead tissue (the buzzards of the insect world)
Some feed on living tissue - have to be a little careful in your taxonomic selections.
Commonly used species: - The blue & green bottle flies
Phormia regina & P. terraenovae & Lucillia sericata
Flies reared in the laboratory under sterile conditions (aseptic) for ultimate placement of larvae into wounds.
Honey long recognized as a "safe" food product and "over-the-counter" medicine
Ancient Egyptians wrote of honey as a wound dressing.
Three Mechanisms which preclude bacterial invasion/growth
1) pH ave. 3.9 (about the same as beer)
2) hyperosmotic
3) presence of "INHIBINE" (Term coined in the mid-1930ties by the Germans)
Glucose Oxidase which liberates H2O2 - a strong antibacterial chemical.
Other uses of Honey in Medicine
medicinal vehicle & taste corrective
Insect Sutures
Use of ants to close wounds - practiced at least 3,000 years B.P. in India
Wide & Sharp MANDIBLES of soldier ants used as stitches.
Castes of Ant Colonies - POLYMORPHIC WORKERS
Majors - Minors - Soldiers
With some ant species heads of soldiers possess well developed jaws!!
Soldier ant held so that "jaws" are open - placed in contact with opposing edges of a wound - jaws snap shut - thorax and abdomen pinched off leaving just the head.
Commonly used species include: Carpenter ants (Camponotus) - Leaf-cutting ants (Atta) - Army ants (Eciton)
Human use of ant "stitches" widespread geographically:
India - Mid-east - South America
Independently evolved human behavior.
Insects as Providers of Medicines
Blister Beetles
Source of CANTHARIDIN - a blistering agent used mostly in uro-genital tract and kidney infections.
Blister Beetles - Coleoptera : Meloidae
Cantharidin found in the blood of beetles and is used as a defensive mechanism via reflex bleeding if an appendage is torn off.
Dried beetles contain as much as 0.4 to 1 percent cantharidin.
Cantharidin collected commercially from a European blister beetle by the name of Lytta vesicatoria (THE Spanish Fly)
2,000 species of blister beetles - 68 described species in the genus Lytta.
Many are native to countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea
Bee & Wasp Venom
Used in controlled, serial dosages for the desensitization of humans "allergic" to wasp and bees.
First experimentally licensed by the U.S. FDA in 1976 & fully licensed in 1980.
Anecdotal tales from beekeeping community "claim" therapeutic value for Arthritis - Bursitis - Rheumatism - M.S., etc. {Maybe?? - jury is still out}
Insects as Medicine:
"Mea Culpa est ignorami." - my guilt is my ignorance.
Insects as referenced in ancient pharmacopoeia (drug reference books)
NOTE: insect "medicines" utilized two basic principles:
¨ ingredients as repulsive as possible
¨ insect used must bear some resemblance of the complaint or suffering
Insects used in the symbolic transfer of disease - insect becomes a sacrifice and/or scapegoat.
{ancient dogma: "similia smilibus curentur" "let likes be cured by likes"}
a.k.a. the Law of Similarity: e.g., cantharidin produces "burning" sensations like the "burning" sensations associated with love, ergo, the reputation as an aphrodisiac!!
Fly Pastes for baldness
Ancient Greece - why??? Flies are hairy!!!!
Earwigs for deafness
Elizabethan England
Dried & powdered earwigs mixed with rabbit urine and poured into the ears twice daily.
Earwigs: Order Dermaptera (derma = skin : ptera = wing)
Small order with only four families in North America
Nocturnal ground scavengers - and they do NOT crawl into human ears.
Cockroach Soups
Louis Armstrong (Jazz trumpetist) relates that his mother would feed him cockroach broth at times of childhood illness.
In Europe (today) powdered cockroaches are still sold under the generic name of Pulvis Tarakanae for pleurisy & pericarditis.
Bedbug Broths
Again Elizabethan England - for curing Malaria.
Grasshoppers to stop the fits (New York, late 19th century)
Cockroaches for measles (ibid.) Place insects in jar or thimble and allow them to die, thus transferring the disease
Spiders Whole (and alive and wiggling)
16th & 17th century Italian cure for Malaria & Tarantism
Tarantism
a nervous disorder characterized by hysteria & a mania for dancing. Believed to be caused by the bite of spiders.
Named after the Italian town of Taranto where it had reached epidemic proportions.
Town of Taranto gave its name to TARANTULA spiders.
And because of the 'dance of the spiders', a Italian folk dance is called the "Tarantella" which is the diminutive form of Taranto. (characterized by fast & swirling movements)
References:
Berenbaum, M. 1993. Over-the-counter insects. American Entomologist 39(4): 200-201.
Chen, Y. and R.D. Akre. 1994. Ants used as food and medicine in China. The Food Insects Newsletter VII(2): 1,8-10.
Clausen, L.S. 1962. Insect Fact and Folklore. Collier Books, NY, NY.
Dahl, R. 1979. My Uncle Oswald. Penguin Books, NY, NY. (a rather ribald, fictional account of the hazards of cantharidin)
Hand, W.D. 1980. Magical Medicine. Univ. California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Harwood, R.F. & M.T. James. 1979. Entomology In Human and Animal Health. Macmillan Pub. Co., NY. Chapter 13 Myiasis.
Howell, M. & P. Ford. 1985. The Beetle Aphrodite and Other Medical Mysteries. Random House, NY, NY.
Joyce, C. 1991. The beetles, the frogs and the French Legionnaires. New Scientist 129: 17.
Kritsky, G.R. 1992. Take two cicadas and call me in the morning. In: Insect Potpourri, (J. Adams, ed.) Sandhill Crane Press, Inc., Gainesville, Florida. pp. 40-43.
Raloff, J. 1989. Spanish fly's lure: ardor or armor? Science News 136: 189.
Taberner, P.V. 1985. Aphrodisiacs: The Science & the Myth. Univ. of Penn. Press, Philadelphia, PA.