Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

72 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
infested with stinging caterpillars. Children who
play under the Tamarind trees at Guayaquil often
get badly stung by hairy caterpillars that drop on
them. I had always made light of caterpillars'
stings until one evening at Tarapoto, in gathering
specimens of an Inga tree, I got badly stung on
the right
when the
wrist,
pain
at the base of the
and irritation at the
thumb ;
end of
and
half
an hour went on increasing, I applied solution
of ammonia pretty freely, and it proved so strong
as to produce excoriation. The next morning the
wound (for such it had become) was inflamed and
very painful, but I tied a rag over it and started
for the forest, accompanied by three men. We
were out twelve hours, and had cold rain from the
sierras all day ;
and
when I reached home again
my right hand was swollen to twice its normal size,
and the swelling extended far up the arm. That
was the beginning of a time of the most intense
suffering I ever endured. After three days of
fever and sleepless nights, ulcers broke out all
over the back of the hand and the wrist they were
thirty-five in all, and I shall carry the scars to my
grave. For five weeks I was condemned to lie
most of the time on a long settle, with my arm
(in a sling) resting on the back, that being the
easiest position I could find. From the first I
applied poultices of rice and linseed, but for all
that the ulceration ran its course. At one time
the case looked so bad that mortification seemed
imminent, and I speculated on the possibility of
instructing my rude neighbours
how to cut off
my hand, as the only means of saving my life. I
attributed my sufferings almost entirely to the