Helminth

“ His eyes sought a human form, but beheld, creeping towards him from a corner opposite, which resembled rather the lair of a wild beast than the abode of anything human, a monster, the sight of which made his blood run cold. A ghastly deathlike skeleton, all the hue of life perished from a face on which grief and despair had traced deep furrows—his beard and nails, from long neglect, grown to a frightful length-his clothes rotten and hanging about him in tatters; and the air he breathed, for want of ventilation and cleansing, foul, fetid, and infectious. ”

“ Wild beasts, in the forest are hunted, for gold; and remote
African hammon is covered by beaters, for fear
Some beast that slays men with his teeth shall escape, for by that
His value to men is enhanced! The vessels receive
Strange ravening monsters; the tiger behind gilded bars
And pacing his cage is transported to Rome, that his jaws
May drip with the life blood of men to the plaudits of men! ”

“ It is conceivable that biological control of cockroaches might be achieved in limited areas such as man-made structures or sewers, but this possibility has not been thoroughly explored. It would be informative to know what effects, if any, organisms such as bacteria, Protozoa (e.g., gregarines) , intestinal nematodes, or other helminths have on cockroaches. Possibly pathogenic microorganisms can be used for biological control of cockroaches ”

“ So the damsel took the bones of the King’s son, piled them up together, kissed the horse between the eyes, placed the bones on his saddle, and whispered in his ear: “Take these bones, my good steed, take them to the proper place.” Then the Demon took the girl and led her back to the palace, for the power of her beauty was so great that it always kept the Demon close to her. Into her presence, indeed, she never suffered the monster to come. ”

“ The forms of fearful monsters168 that originated in Asia, with ferocious jaws, with three heads, spreading fear and awe, looking as if nothing but human flesh could satisfy their voracity, also terrified the Greeks during the mythic period of their national existence, and human flesh was accordingly sacrificed. Such sacrifices were prevalent wherever monster-gods, without human shape, without legs or arms, with fishes’ tails, dog’s or cat’s heads, with round and glaring eyes, and many arms, inspired the masses with fear and trembling. ”

“ The ancient demons, the good genii of mankind, shorn of their honours, driven forth, pursued, hunted down, remained hidden in the woods. There, if they still showed themselves to men, they adopted, to hold them in awe, a terrible face, a red, green, or black skin, baleful eyes, an enormous mouth fringed with boars' teeth, horns, a tail, and sometimes a human face on their bellies. The nymphs remained fair, and the barbarians, ignorant of the winsome names they bore in other days, called them fairies, and, imputing to them a capricious character and puerile tastes, both feared and loved them. ”

“ These are the devils who enter in by legions and take possession of the empty minds of those who do nob create for themselves. You can see them in all their uncouth and horrible yet filmy shapes, some like grovelling swine, some like rapacious beasts and birds, with their bat-wings and combination of bestial forms covering the surface of the earth like a dense smoke all intertwined and loathsome to behold, as you can see the creation of purity, self-sacrifice and noble purpose fluttering like white doves and sea-birds in and out that black turgid cloud. ”

“ My mother, the arms that the god hath given are such as the works of immortals should fitly be, such as no mortal man could fashion. Now therefore will I array me for battle; yet am I sore afraid lest meantime flies enter the wounds that the bronze hath dealt on the corpse of the valiant son of Menoetius, and breed worms therein, and work shame upon his corpse—for the life is slain out of him—and so all his flesh shall rot. ”

“ The bestial faces, daubed with color—the huge mouths and flabby hanging lips—the yellow teeth, sharp filed—the rolling, demon eyes—the shining naked bodies—the cruel spears. Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth—he must indeed be dreaming. ”

“ The name of this rider is Death, and Hell (or Hades) follows him—as if the hosts of the dead came again on the earth. Power is given to the rider over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and with wild beasts. This emblem would seem to denote war, wide-wasting pestilence, famine, and desolation—as if wild beasts were suffered to roam over lands that had been inhabited; something of which paleness would be an emblem. ”

“ For everywhere in France the great moth, with its strange and ominous markings, is perfectly well known. To the superstitious it is a creature of evil omen in its fulvous, black and lead-coloured livery of death. For the broad, furry thorax bears a skull, and the big, mousy body the yellow ribs of a skeleton. ”

“ The sight of the serpent awakens all the dead, old body-memories of ancient ages, when that reptile was man’s ever-present, mortal enemy.
The domestic horse, made unafraid by a thousand generations, when he smells his ancient enemy, the bear, will rear and plunge to break and run for his life. ”

“ Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall. A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death To-day, the breathing marble glows above To decorate its memory, and tongues 510 Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms In silence and in darkness seize their prey. ”

“ Wrath and hate, like those of a fiend, seemed to swell the flattened head, to fire the protruding orbs, and redden the flamelike tongue of this hideous and terrific reptile, the venom of which, when inserted in its victim by the two long fangs that protrude from the upper jaw, is more virulent and deadly than the poison of any other of its dreadful species. ”

“ In words like these addressed the pair:
'O Princes, monsters fierce and fell
Around that distant forest dwell:
On blood from human veins they feed,
And various forms assume at need,
With savage beasts of fearful power
That human flesh and blood devour. ”

“ Those who bend men's thoughts to murder, have the shape of birds or beasts of prey. More tolerable are those qualified to answer questions about philosophy and religion when called up, they seem almost human, but have crooked noses like mermaids or satyrs. Such evil spirits as have a predilection towards inducing mixed vices are not of distinct shape like one single beast, but are compound monsters with serpent tails, four eyes, many feet and horns and so on. ”

“ Perhaps, these serpentine Strokes might be intended as Emblems, or Memento’s of the fatal Wound in Paradise, where Man’s Nature was first poisoned by the Devil, who made use of a real Serpent to seduce our first Parents.
What is moral Evil but the Venom of the old Serpent? A Venom as pleasant to the Taste, as the forbidden Fruit to the Eye, but the End is Bitterness. And what are Incentives to Sin, but delusive Insinuations of the subtle Serpent? ”

“ Whilst the rain descended in pitiless torrents, a continual chuckle of the highest merriment, which ran through all the various notes of a clear throat, resounded afar amid the crunching of bones and munching of flesh—a deeper growl from some larger beast of prey, now and then varying the infernal harmony, to be followed by another ringing laugh as of a whole legion of devils. ”

“ A devout author says, 'Suppose, by chance, that, passing on your way, you should have crushed to death a worm in your path; and then some one, observing your compassion for the poor reptile, should say to you, Well, now, if you would restore that dead worm to life, you must first yourself become a worm like it, and then must shed all your blood, and make a bath of it in which to wash the worm, and so it shall revive ”

“ Burial is the more antient, as having been us’d in the Primitive Ages by the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and most other Nations, yet the two latter burn’d their Dead, as is pretended on the following Considerations. First, That Worms and such like vile Insects might be thereby prevented from corroding the noble Bodies of the Dead, and the Living be freed from the Infection and Stench of Carcasses rotting in the Earth. ”

“ The rebellious angels having been transformed into devils, and by swords and spears thrust over the battlements of Heaven, are falling into the jaws of Hell, which is here represented, in the conventional style of medieval designers, as the mouth of a hideous monster filled with forks of flame. ”

“ Balancing hell, on the left hand of the spectator, is brute earth, the grave, the forming and the swallowing clay, out of which souls, not yet acquitted or condemned, emerge with difficulty, in varied forms of skeletons or corpses, slowly thawing into life eternal. ”

“ If the beauty of a creature fascinates you, remember that the serpent of Hell lies hidden beneath it, anxious and ready to kill or at least wound you, and say to him—"Ah, accursed serpent, with what subtlety dost thou lay wait to devour me!" ”

“ These souls sometimes do inhabit not these kind of bodies only, but by a too great affection of flesh and blood transmute themselves into other animals, and seize upon the bodies of creeping things, and brutes, entering into them what kind soever they be of, possessing them like demons. ”

“ The Chaldeans, who were among the world's greatest magicians, like the Egyptians, represented demons under such monstrous forms, with combined human and animal characteristics, that it was thought sufficient to show them their own image to cause them to flee away in alarm. One such specimen, for instance, had the body of a dog, the feet of an eagle, the claws of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, the head of a skeleton but half decayed, and adorned with goats' horns and the eyes still remaining, and four great expanded wings. ”

“ Finally he went off into one of his characteristic speeches. “That which the warld torments me in most is the awful confusion of noise. It is the devil’s own infernal din all the blessed day long, confounding God’s warks and His creatures—a truly awfu’ hell-like combination, and the warst of a’ is a railway whistle, like the screech of ten thousand cats, and ivery cat of them all as big as a cathédral.” ”

“ But what greater evils can one have to fear from veritable demons and the most malignant spirits, than those which the ghouls of Hungary cause the persons whose blood they suck, and thus cause to die? 5. Others will have it that it is not the dead who eat their own flesh or clothes, but serpents, rats, moles, ferrets, or other voracious animals, or even what the peasants call striges, [583] which are birds that devour animals and men, and suck their blood. ”

“ We may almost fancy that we can see them in their dark and subterranean retreats, crouching round their hearths, and skilfully and patiently chipping out their flint instruments and shaping their reindeer-horn tools, in the midst of all the pestilential emanations arising from the various animal remains which their carelessness has allowed to remain in their dwellings. Skins of wild beasts are stripped of their hair, and, by the aid of flint needles, are converted into garments. ”

“ They gnaw not the bones till the morrow - They devour the flesh in the night, and gnaw the bones and extract the marrow afterwards. They use all violence and predatory oppression, like wild beasts; they shun the light, and turn day into night by their revellings. ”

“ This extra-moral piece, given in great style, displays the prodigal about to partake of fruit which turns into skulls in his hands, then water becomes transformed into fire, rocks rend apart disclosing a corpse hanging from a gallows. As it swings in the wind, the limbs fall off and then collect again, on the ground, and arise to pursue the prodigal, and so on with similarly pleasing surprises. ”

“ What the horse then does we shall see in the next chapter. The youth fights and vanquishes the demon, by fastening one of his lips to the heavens, and the other to the earth; the defeated demon advises him to rub himself with the fat of his stomach; inside his stomach he will find a casket of silver, inside that a casket of gold, and inside that another casket of silver; he is to take it and throw it into the sea of milk. From the monster's stomach, cut open, come forth innumerable animals, men, treasures, and other objects. ”

“ The larger sort of Domestic and Tame Creatures seem likewise to endeavour this, as much as they can, as may be observ’d from Horses, Oxen, Sheep, &c. who when they decline and draw near their Deaths, seek either the thickest part of a Wood, a Dell or Gravel-Pit in a Common, or deep Ditch in a Field, where they may lay themselves down, as in a Grave, 28and die: They seem to desire nothing more of their Master, whom they have all their Lives faithfully serv’d, than to cover their Bodies with the Earth. ”

“ Near Roehampton I had seen two human skeletons—not bodies, but skeletons, picked clean—and in the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. ”

“ As it sneaks like a culprit through the scarred fields of battle, it washes bare the bones of the dead in crumbling uniforms—bringing, stark and staring, to the upper air once more, the blanched skeleton and the grinning skull. ”