AN EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TREATMENT FOR EQUINE BOT FLY
Keywords:
materia medica, Scotland, Oestridae, bot fly, belemnite, Megateuthis
Abstract
This paper presents brief comments on an early modern treatment for infestation of horses by bot fly (probaby Gasterophilus intestinalis). The Scottish author and physician, Martin Martin (c. 1660-1718) records the rural Gaelic practise of treating diseased animals using water in which Jurassic belemnites, probably belonging to the genus Megateuthis and collected from Bajocian rocks on the eastern shores of the Isle of Skye, had been steeped. This means of treatment is something of an outlier in the range of medicinal uses of belemnites, and the philosophy behind it is not clear.
References
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22. Goodrum MR. Questioning Thunderstones and Arrowheads: The Problem of Recognizing and Interpreting Stone Artifacts in the Seventeenth Century. Early Science and Medicine. 2008; 13 (5): 482-508.
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25. Klein, JT. Descriptiones tubulorum marinorum; in quorum censum relati lapides caudae cancri, gesneri, & his similes; belemnitae; eorumque alveoli. Secundum dispositionem musei Kleiniani. Addita est dissertatio epistolaris de pilis marinis. Cum figuris. Danzig: Knoch; 1773.
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28. Bryce J. On the Jurassic Rocks of Skye and Raasay. Quartely Journal of the Geological Society of london. 1873; 29 (1): 317-339.
29. Langham W. The garden of health conteyning the sundry rare and hidden vertues and properties of all kindes of simples and plants, together with the maner how they are to be vsed and applyed in medicine for the health of mans body, against diuers diseases and infirmities most common amongst men. London: [By the deputies of Christopher Barker]; 1597.
30. Murrell J. A daily exercise for ladies and gentlewomen Whereby they may learne and practice the whole art of making pastes, preserues, marmalades, conserues, tartstuffes, gellies, breads, sucket candies, cordiall vvaters, conceits in sugar-vvorkes of seuerall kindes. As also to dry lemonds, orenges, or other fruits. Newly set forth, according to the now approued receipts, vsed both by honourable and vvorshipfull personages. London: Printed [by T. Snodham] for the vvidow Helme, and are to be sould at her shop in S. Dunstans church-yard in Fleetstreet; 1617.
31. Croll O. A Treatise of Oswaldus Crollius of Signatures of Internal Things; or, A True and Lively Anatomy of the Greater and Lesser World. London: Printed for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleet-Street, and Thomas Passenger at the Three Bibles upon London Bridge; 1669.
32. Behrens GH. Hercynia Curiosa. Nordhausen: Carl Christian Neuenhahn; 1703.
33. Bassett MG. ‘Formed Stones', Folklore and Fossils. National Museum of Wales, Geological Series No. 1. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales; 1982.
2. Williams RE, Knapp FW. 1999. Flies and external parasites of horses. Horse Industry Handbook: 415.5-415.6.
3. Cogley T., Cogley M. 2000. Field observations of the host-parasite relationship associated with the common horse bot fly, Gasterophilus intestinalis. Veterinary Parasitology. 2000; 88: 93-105.
4. Withers, C. A. (ed.). A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland circa 1695. East Kilbride; Birlinn: 2018.
5. Martin M. A. A late voyage to St. Kilda, the remotest of all the Hebrides, or the Western isles of Scotland with a history of the island, natural moral, and topographical: wherein is an account of their customes religion, fish, fowl, &c.: as also a relation of a late impostor there, pretended to be sent by St. John Baptist. London: Printed for D. Brown and T. Goodwin; 1698.
6. Martin M. A. Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. London: A. Bell, T. Varnum, J. Osborn, W. Taylor, J. Baker & T. Warner; 1703.
7. Martin M. A. Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. 2nd edition. London: A. Bell, T. Varnum, J. Osborn, W. Taylor, J. Baker & T. Warner; 1716.
8. Oakley KP. Folklore and Fossils. Antiquity. 1965; 39: 9-16: 117-125.
9. Lüschen H. Die Namen der Steine. Das Mineralreich im Spiegel der Sprache. Thun: Ott Verlag; 1979.
10. Rätsch C, Guhr A. Lexikon der Zauber¬steine. 1989; 1-240. Graz: Akademische Druck – u. Verlagsanstalt Graz.
11. Thenius E., Vávra N. Fossilien im Volks¬glauben und im Alltag. 1996: 1-179. Frankfurt am Main: Kramer.
12. Hegele A. Donnerkeil und Teufelsfinger. Belemniten in Volksglauben und Volksmedizin. Fossilien. 1997; 1: 21—26.
13. Duffin CJ. Stones for the Stone: minerals and fossils in the treatment of renal calculi. Pharmaceutical Historian. 2006; 36 (4): 56—60.
14. Duffin, CJ. Fossils as drugs: pharmaceutical palaeontology. Ferrantia. 2008; 54: 1—83.
15. Duffin CJ. Some early Eighteenth Century geological Materia Medica. In Duffin CJ, Moody RTJ, Gardner-Thorpe C. (eds.): A History of Geology and Medicine. Geological Society of London Special Publication. 2013; 375: 209-233.
16. Duffin CJ. Amber as a component of palaeontological pharmacology. In Polyakova I, Duffin CJ, Suvorova TJ. (eds.): Amber in the history of medicine: Proceedings of the International Conference. 2018; 95-132. Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad Regional Amber Museum [dated 2016].
17. Plot R. The natural history of Oxford-shire, being an essay toward the natural history of England. 2nd edition. Oxford: Printed by Leon. Lichfield, for Charles Brome at the Gun near the West-End of St Paul's Church, and John Nicholson at the King's-Arms in Little-Britain: 1705. [Paul Minet reprint 1972]
18. De Boodt AB. Gemmarum et lapidum historia. Hanoviae: Typis Wechelianus apud Claudium Marnium & heredes Ioannis Aubrii. 1609.
19. Rumpf GE. Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum. Lugduni Batavorum: Petrum Van der Aa; 1711.
20. Van Andel, MA. The Ceraunia or Thunder-axe. Its Use in Folk Medicine. Annals of Medical History. 1924; 6 (4): 452-456.
21. Goodrum MR. The meaning of ceraunia: archaeology, natural history and the interpretation of prehistoric stone artefacts in the eighteenth century. British Journal for the History of Science. 2002; 35: 255-269.
22. Goodrum MR. Questioning Thunderstones and Arrowheads: The Problem of Recognizing and Interpreting Stone Artifacts in the Seventeenth Century. Early Science and Medicine. 2008; 13 (5): 482-508.
23. Bostock J, Riley HT. The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. London: Taylor and Francis. 1855.
24. Schlotheim, EF von. Die Petrefaktenkunde auf ihrem jetzigen Standpunkte durch die Beschreibung seiner Sammlung versteinerter und fossiler Überreste des Thier- und Pflanzenreichs der Vorwelt erläutert. Gotha: Becker; 1820.
25. Klein, JT. Descriptiones tubulorum marinorum; in quorum censum relati lapides caudae cancri, gesneri, & his similes; belemnitae; eorumque alveoli. Secundum dispositionem musei Kleiniani. Addita est dissertatio epistolaris de pilis marinis. Cum figuris. Danzig: Knoch; 1773.
26. Riegraf W. Taxonomic revision and lectotypes for the belemnites described by Baron Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim (1764–1832). Paläontologische Zeitschrift. 2001; 74: 281–303.
27. Klug C, Schweigert G, Hoffmann R, Fuchs D, Pohle A, Weis R, De Baets K. Anatomy and size of Megateuthis, the largest belemnite. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology. 2024; 143 (23): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13358-024-00320-x
28. Bryce J. On the Jurassic Rocks of Skye and Raasay. Quartely Journal of the Geological Society of london. 1873; 29 (1): 317-339.
29. Langham W. The garden of health conteyning the sundry rare and hidden vertues and properties of all kindes of simples and plants, together with the maner how they are to be vsed and applyed in medicine for the health of mans body, against diuers diseases and infirmities most common amongst men. London: [By the deputies of Christopher Barker]; 1597.
30. Murrell J. A daily exercise for ladies and gentlewomen Whereby they may learne and practice the whole art of making pastes, preserues, marmalades, conserues, tartstuffes, gellies, breads, sucket candies, cordiall vvaters, conceits in sugar-vvorkes of seuerall kindes. As also to dry lemonds, orenges, or other fruits. Newly set forth, according to the now approued receipts, vsed both by honourable and vvorshipfull personages. London: Printed [by T. Snodham] for the vvidow Helme, and are to be sould at her shop in S. Dunstans church-yard in Fleetstreet; 1617.
31. Croll O. A Treatise of Oswaldus Crollius of Signatures of Internal Things; or, A True and Lively Anatomy of the Greater and Lesser World. London: Printed for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleet-Street, and Thomas Passenger at the Three Bibles upon London Bridge; 1669.
32. Behrens GH. Hercynia Curiosa. Nordhausen: Carl Christian Neuenhahn; 1703.
33. Bassett MG. ‘Formed Stones', Folklore and Fossils. National Museum of Wales, Geological Series No. 1. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales; 1982.
Published
2024/12/12
Section
Članci