Vespa

Authorities. 26, Dr. Robert T. Cooper, Brit. Journ. of Horn., vol. xxxv, 1877, p. 345, a boy, tet. nine and a half years, was stung all over by wasps; 27, J. C. Burnett, M.D., Month. Horn. Rev., vol. xxii, 1878, p. 544, a woman was stung on the tongue by a wasp, she soon took Ledum 3 in water; 28, William Rowbotham, Organon, vol. ii, 1879, j). 79, I was stung on the right cheek by a wasp.

Next day, about 4 a.m., I was suddenly awoke by a sudden burning and stinging sensation in my cheek, and a great soreness and smarting along the course of the lymphatics down into my neck. I found my cheek much swollen and red, and there was a patch of redness about the size of a florin that felt as though it were being pierced with red-hot needles. The temporo-maxillary joint was stiff and painful, and a feeling of soreness ran along the gums to the tonsil on that side of my face. After bathing for awhile the affected parts, I got into bed again, feeling somewhat relieved, and fell asleep; but about two hours afterwards, I was again suddenly roused, this time by a sense of suffocation and difficulty of swallowing, and a renewal of the former distress, with intensified severity. Feeling alarmed, I obtained some hot water, to which I added a few drops of tincture of Ledum, and fomented the whole of the affected region until the severity of the symptoms abated. During the remainder of that day, and for four days afterwards, the attacks continued to retui-n in paroxysms of more or less severity. The submaxillary and cervical glands on that side of my face became increasingly swollen and tender till the fourth day, when these conditions began gradually to abate ; but in the immediate locality of the wound the pains assumed a more constant character, throbbing, smarting, and burning; still there was a marked periodicity about the stinging and lancinating pains experienced for more than a mouth afterwards, although the wound suj)purated and discharged freely. The general and constitutional disturbances were marked by slight rigors and febrile conditions, felt mostly in the evening, but 1 was not able to give much attention to them,®.—Found her in a state of terrible anxiety, with eyes and face cedematous, and quite unable to articulate or to protrude her tongue, but she could often her mouth a little, and I could see the sting imbedded in the middle of the middle thii'd of the tongue; I at once extracted it. Tongue itself, with its root, and the whole floor of the mouth so swelled that the cavity of the mouth was entirely filled therewith and then nothing else could be seen. She could not articulate a single word. She suffered great pain in the tongue, which she subsequently described as burning, throbbing, and aching. Her great anxiety was probably not due to the sting, but from lear arising from the evil repute of wasp-stings in general. To me the point of interest lies in the similarity of the appearance of the patient’s face, mouth, and throat to a severe cynanche. There was great dysphagia, so that she could not swallow the teaspoonful of medicine, but was obliged to swallow it in halves, and that with extreme difficulty. The surface of the tongue and the lining of the cavity of the mouth did not seem specially red, the entire swelling being diffuse and deepseated,^’.—Was stung all over by wasps four or five years ago, this was followed by abscesses all over the body that caused great emaciation; every now and then gets seizures of prostration, with enuresis somni; heat especially overpowers him. Purulent catarrh of the middle ear of both sides,“.