The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-08-11
THE MEXICAN WASP.
How the Insect Cured a Very Bad Cas-
of Rheumatism.

home, I'd be willing to back that spider
to knock out the typhus or anything
else. The insect that doctored me is an
interesting specimen of the wasp fami-
| ". / forget what the Mexican name
for it is, but translated il means taran-
tula hawk, and it is called that because
it has a way of swooping down on the
tarantula and disposing of it as easily
as chicken hawk can do up pullet.
''This wasp is the only thing that big
hairy spider is afraid of. The tarantula
will tackle a rattlesnake or a bear
without moments hesitation, but it
turns tail and digs for home if there is
a tarantula hawk buzzing anywhere in
its vicinity The wasp doesn't eat the
tarantula. 1t simply drops down on it
and socks its singer in the spider,
whereupon the spider turns up its toes.
The wasp lays couple of eggs in the
fleshy part of the tarantula's big body
and then buries its victim. The curious
part of it is the spider isn't dead. 1t is
only paralyzed or embalmed, so to
speak, with all its vital juices intact.
The wasp's eggs hatch out grubs in the
course of time, and the grubs go right
to work dining on the tarantula's pre-
served meat
"When they have eaten 1t all they
bore out of the spiders shell, dig their
way to the surface, and become wasps
themselves, and start out for business
on their own account. This interest
ing wasp is something like couple of
l. i 4 = I'D Lac
singer with close on to an inch of
plunge. This singer is what you
might call nonforfeitable singer, for
it doesn't yield itself up at a single
plunge, like honey bee does its sting
er, but is good for an all days job. The
Mexican wasp is the color of bay
horse, and5they say down there that it
will go ten miles out of its way to
sting a man. The natives get fat on
centipede stings and scorpion stings,
but they will dive for cover when the
wasp of that favored cline heaves to. 1
had the honor, to my everlasting joy,
of being tasted once by one of these
blessings in disguise. Why to my ever
lasting JOY? l will tell you.
For fifteen years | had been . big
favorite with the rheumatism. 1t
all it had on me at any time. had
tried pills, and liniments, and batteries,
and springs. and every other unfailing
remedy for rheumatism, but still it
chung to me closer and closer. A couple
of years ago a friend of mine told me
to go down into Mexico and try the
climate there, because, he said, he
knew man who had gone there al
most tied in a knot by rheumatism, and
he got well.
80 | went down into Mexico, and
promptly and steadily got worse every
day. l was getting ready to come back
home and die, if could. when one day
a Mexican wasp pitying me, | suppose,
came along and socked his singer into
me. He sampled me on the cheek, and,
although had been a passenger agent
for twenty years, my cheek was feazed
by that wasp At first | felt as if the
whole of one side of my head was
asleep. | had heard all about the way
these wasps treated tarantulas, and l
said:
"'Great Scott Is this wasp going to
embalm me. fill me full of eggs, and
serve me as free lunch to its incipient
progeny
MY face kept on getting cold, and l
couldn't make it hurt by pinching it or
pricking it with pin. In the horror
of what l supposed was my impending
fate. lost all recollection of the rheu-
matte pains that had been turning me
almost inside out only a minute or SD
before. The cheering numbness and
GOODNESS in my face and head didn't
last long. They quit as suddenly as
they came, and were succeeded by
pang such as i imagine might follow
the insertion of "A wire into a sensitive
pare of your body, and then having it
gradually heated until it stood at white
heat | clawed my jaw and pulled my
hair and pranced around and howled
Five minutes before it was all could
do to hobble around with a cane.
"a sympathetic native told me |
would keep on feeling that way for
couple of hours. l did, for nobody
would lend me pistol. l could have
laid down and died with willingness,
and moaned and moaned when they
told me that the sting of the Mexican
wasp never killed anybody. The two
hours that l kept company with the
aftermath of that wasp's plunger were
two hours of mortal agony. But the
pain went away after that so suddenly
that went to sleep and had delightful
dreams. When | awoke | felt like a
new man. The check hadn't swollen a
particle during the entire course of the
treatment, but it was as sore as nine
boils for two days.
Now. queer as it may seem, couldn't
imagine what it was about me that felt
so new and strange for those two days,
and then all of a sudden it hit me that
it was because my rheumatism was
gone. There was no more sign of
rheumatism about me than there is
about a kitten. And there never has
been from that day to this. | don't
care how bad man has rheumatism,
let him go down and take the Mexican
wasp-sting treatment, and he'll forget
he ever had it. / know what the Next
can wasp can do in rheumatism, and so
dlA WllilhS W pdCh thd1 -hSAtCdh
spider at big odds against typhus, and
you may tell 'em that say SON. Y.
Sun.
-Anne-''Do you know, Mabel, had
two offers of marriage last week?'
Mabel-'My darling Anne. l am so de-
lighted! Then it is really true that
your uncle left you all his money?"-
Judy.
The largest cut stones in the world
are in the Temple of the Sun at Baal-
bee. Many are more than sixty feet