Rediscovering the Medicinal Value of Insects
Dr Abe V Rotor
Insects give us the
sweetest sugar - honey, the finest fabric – silk, the purest light - firefly, reddest dye – cochineal, most
lilting sound – crickets’ music, and strangest model of unity - termite and bee colonies. Insects fill
Ceres basket with fruits and vegetables through the magic of pollination which
no other creatures can match. And now
they are moving into the front line of alternative medicine.
A former co-teacher had been limping for
some time. Then one day I met her briskly walking on the campus, her swollen arm
hanging on a sling. “I got stung by bees,” she complained.
I remember having read in Time Magazine
that bee sting is good for arthritis and rheumatism. In fact the number of clinics and doctors
that use bee venom as an alternative medicine is increasing in number in the
United States and other parts of the world.
The treatment is as simple as introducing
the excited bee over the affected area, say, the knee or elbow. By holding the struggling bee with forceps,
its posterior needle is aimed at the infected area. Once the needle is embedded the bee is
removed, the sting with the attached poison sac is torn off leading to the
insect’s death. (This is the same reason why the male bee dies after mating
with the potential queen during the nuptial flight.) The poison sac contracts rhythmically as more
poison flows into the affected muscles and nerves.
“Bee sting relieves arthritis and
rheumatism,” I ventured explaining to the surprise of my co-teacher. “Why, it’s
true!” she exclaimed. “Lately I've not been feeling tight joints and morning aches.” Jokingly she said she would like to go into honeybee keeping and get
more bee stings. An article mentioned that beekeepers live active and longer
lives. Some say occasional bee sting is good for the heart. Could this be true?
Bee venom treatment attracts many
patients who are conscious of the side effects of synthetic drugs. In their testimonies they find it effective
that many patients virtually hang their canes soon after the treatment. The
relief allows patients to follow a regimen of exercise and controlled diet to
help in healing.
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Many kinds of insects have
been reputed to possess medicinal properties The use of insects and their
products in alternative medicine dates back to antiquity with the use of wild
honey as poultice for wounds and infections other than its principal use as
health food.
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Bee Extract
In the first half of the last century
there was a preparation known as “Apis” which is extracted from the bodies of
honeybees. The extraction is done by
killing the insects in ethanol while they are intensely excited. The medium
digests their bodies for a month at warm temperature. It is finally brought to
a strength representing two ounces of bees to one pint of the medicine. This
preparation has been used for the treatment of “hives,” diphtheria, scarlet
fever, erysipelas, dropsy, urinary irritation, and all kinds of edema
accompanied by swelling and burning.
In an article, “The Remedial Value of
Stings,” the author ER Roots reported that bee venom has been placed in the
market in ampules is administered hypodermically thus giving the same effects
as natural sting, minus the pain. Pre-testing for allergy is more convenient
and doses are easier to adjust. But such
treatment is not popular among Filipinos although many of us believe in the herbolario,
manghihilot and faith healer.
_04_ies.jpg)
Mealy bug, Dactylopius coccus, source of prized red dye exclusively used
historically by the Roman emperor and his court .
historically by the Roman emperor and his court .
Cochineal
Another insect with medicinal value is a
mealy bug, Dactylopius coccus that produces cochineal. The insect is
presently cultured commercially in Honduras, Canary Island, Mexico, Peru and
Spain. Cochineal is extensively used as dye but lately it has been discovered
to possess properties that allay pain, and it is reported to be effective in
treating whooping cough and neuralgia.
Heal Deep-Seated
Wounds
I was reading an account of a very rare
case of insect use as a substitute for delicate surgery. During the First World War, a certain Dr. W.
S. Baer noticed that wounds of soldiers who had been lying on the battlefield
for hours did not develop infections, such as osteomyelitis; much so unlike
those wounds which had been treated and dressed promptly after combat.
The reason for this is: the older wounds
were found to be infested with maggots.
These maggots are larvae of flies, commonly houseflies (Musca
domestica) and blue bottle flies (Calliphora sp). The adult flies
can detect the smell of blood and deposit their eggs around the wound,
anticipating that their larvae will soon feed on the injured tissues.
Fly maggots therapy (Wikipedia)
Doctors who have observed this phenomenon
were surprised to find out that the maggots do “clean up” the wounds,
especially the deep-seated ones, more effectively than ordinary surgical or
antibacterial treatment! This discovery led to the practice of rearing maggots
under sterile conditions, then introducing these clinically clean maggots into
wounds, there to consume the microscopic particles of putrefied flesh and
bone. This practice, however, came to an
end with the introduction of modern drugs and surgery. But to show how
extensive this practice was, a survey conducted during its peak showed that 92
per cent of 600 physicians who had used this treatment reported favorably about
it.
A renowned researcher Dr. William
Robinson was able to isolate a substance from the secretion of the maggots
that, he believed, contain the healing effects on infected wounds. This material is allantoin. It soon became commercially available as
its importance began to be recognized.
Allantoin
Commercial allantoin is a
harmless, odorless, painless, and inexpensive lotion which, when applied to
chronic ulcers, burns and similar pus-forming wounds, stimulates local, rather
than general, granulation. It is very
valuable in treating deep wounds such as bone marrow infections, where the
internal part of the wound must be healed first.
But allantoin solutions cannot be
as efficient as using living maggots in the treatment of bone infections. It is because the maggots actually eat out
the necrotic tissue, and kill the pus-forming bacteria by digesting them. In the process, the maggots continuously
secrete minute quantities of allantoin in their excreta to the very
depth of the wound especially where the use of surgical instrument is limited,
if not dangerous.
Except in very isolated cases, modern
medicine has succeeded in shelving the practice of using maggots on wounds.
Cantharidin – A Cure All
Drug and Aphrodisiac
In our animal husbandry class, our
professor, Dr. Rufino Gapuz, told us of a way to harness and calm down a cow
that is in heat so that she can be safely brought to the corral for
insemination. This was in the sixties
when artificial insemination was something new in animal science. There is an
injection prepared from the body of the blister beetle, called “Spanish fly”, Lytta
vasicatoria. (Photo, Wikipedia)
This insect occurs in abundance in France
and Spain, a relative of the American blister beetle. The beetle carries in its
body cantharidin. It was used as
folk medicine during the 19th century for all sorts of ailments, and
was very much used as an aphrodisiac. At
present it is used in treating certain diseases of the urinogenital system and
in animal breeding.
A mild dosage ointment has been formulated from the blister beetle in removing warts.
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In the seventeenth century, some curative power was attributed to almost every known insect. For example, the bite of katydid or cricket is said to remove warts, cockroaches or earwig when dried and compounded will cure ulcer, weak sight, earache and dropsy. This is of course pure quackery and superstitious belief.
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Antibiotics and Anti-inflammatory Ant Secretion
A mild dosage ointment has been formulated from the blister beetle in removing warts.
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In the seventeenth century, some curative power was attributed to almost every known insect. For example, the bite of katydid or cricket is said to remove warts, cockroaches or earwig when dried and compounded will cure ulcer, weak sight, earache and dropsy. This is of course pure quackery and superstitious belief.
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Antibiotics and Anti-inflammatory Ant Secretion
With the decline in the effectiveness of
antibiotics as a result of increasing resistance of pathogens, the search for
more potent ones has widened into
various fields, which today include plants, fungi, protists and monerans.
One potential source of antibiotics is
the green tree ant -Oecophylla smaragdina (photo) - a member of the large order
of insects Hymenoptera to which bees and wasps belong. Like their relatives the
green tree ant that is locally known as hantik, lives in colonies. This social behavior enables them to grow in
numbers of hundreds or thousands in a single colony, which can remain active
for a long time. Other than its
reported antibiotic property, the leaf nest of the green tree ant relieves
inflammation when bandaged on the affected area.
Insects, the most numerous and oldest of
all animals, have many good reasons to be with us. They are part of nature’s
healing system which helps us live happier and healthier lives. ~
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