Produced by Bryan Ness, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from scans of public domain works at the University of Michigan's Making of America collection.) APIS MELLIFICA; OR, THE POISON OF THE HONEY-BEE, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent. BY C. W. WOLF, M.D., Ex-District Physician in Berlin. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY WILLIAM RADDE, 635 ARCH STREET. 1858. PREFACE. Every physician who has spent years of an active life in prescribing for large numbers of patients, is morally bound to publish his experience to the world, provided he is satisfied, in his interior conscience, that such a publication might be useful to the general interests of humanity. In offering the following essay to my readers, I simply desire to fulfil an obligation recognised as valid by the inner sense. This essay contains every thing that an experience of forty years in the conscientious and philanthropic exercise of my profession has sanctioned and confirmed as truth. Nor have I adopted a single fact, suggested by my own observation, as correct, without contrasting it with the most approved records of medicine. To every true friend of man, and more particularly to every physician who considers the business of healing disease as the highest office of medical art, I offer this essay for further trial and examination. May the statements expressed in it either be confirmed or else corrected and improved by those who excel in more thorough knowledge and ability. THE AUTHOR. _Berlin, Oct., 1857._ APIS MELLIFICA. "The bee helps to heal all thy internal and external maladies, and is the best little friend whom man possesses in this world."--More in Cotton's _Book of the Bee_, p. 138. Since Hahnemann's successful attempt to develop the medicinal nature of Aconite, no other discovery has been made in the domain of practical medicine, as comprehensive and universally useful as the discovery of the medicinal virtues of the poison of the bee. It is of the utmost importance to the interests of humanity to become as intimately acquainted with the efficacy of this poison as possible. It is the object of these papers to contribute my mite to this work.