“In the year 1503,” says Moufet, “Dr. Penny was called in great haste to a little village, called Mortlake, near the Thames, to visit two noble ladies (duas nobiles), who were much frightened by the appearance of bug-bites (ex cinicum vestigiis), and were in fear of I know not what contagion; but when the matter was known, and the insects caught, he laughed them out of all fear.”[911]
This fact disproves the statement of Southall, that the Cimex lectularius was not known in England before 1670, and that of Linnæus, and the generality of later writers, that this insect is not originally a native of Europe, but was introduced into England after the great fire of London in 1666, having been brought in timber from America.
The original English names of the C. lectularius, were Chinche, Wall-louse, and Punaise (from the French); and the term Bug, which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost or goblin, was applied to them after the time of Ray,[912] most probably because they were considered as “terrors of the night.”[913]
In the Nicholson’s Journal[914] there is mention of a man who, far from disliking Bed-bugs, took them under his protecting care, and would never suffer them to be disturbed, or his bedsteads removed, till in the end they swarmed to an
incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room; and after his death millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture.
Gemelli, in 1695, visited the Banian hospital at Surat, and says that what amazed him most, though he went there for that express purpose, was to see “a poor wretch, naked, bound down hands and feet, to feed the Bugs or Punaises, brought out of their stinking holes for that purpose.”[915]
Mr. Forbes, speaking of this remarkable institution for animals, says: “At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats and mice, Bugs, and other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the Fleas, Lice, and Bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation.”[916]
Navarette says that a species of Bugs (most probably a Cimex), which swarm in some parts of China, are a source of great amusement to the natives; for they take particular delight in killing them with their fingers, and then clapping them to their noses.[917]
Democritus says that the feet of a hare, or of a stag, hung round the feet of the bed at the bottom of the couch, does not suffer Bugs to breed; but, in traveling, Didymus adds, if you fill a vessel with cold water and set it under the bed, they will not touch you when you are asleep.[918]
A superstition prevails among us that beds, in order to rid them effectually of Bugs, must be cleaned during the dark of the moon.