The second is a case of stiffness in the knee effectually cured: In 1798, Mrs. Jane Crabley, aged 56 years, began to complain of a most torturing pain, and considerable enlargement of the knee-pan, which she described as, and which her neighbors believed to be, a smart paroxysm of gout. Early in February, 1799, the inflammation and pain entirely ceased, but the swelling continued, and rather increased. The joint of the knee, from disuse, became perfectly stiff, and, owing to the particular form and size of her breasts, no relief could be gained by the use of crutches. However, toward the end of May, the Ants became so strangely troublesome to her, that she was sometimes obliged to avail herself of the help of travelers to assist her in changing her station. Still, however, they followed her, and seemed entirely attracted by her now useless knee. She was at first considerably annoyed by these little torments, but, in a few days, became not only reconciled to their intrusion, but was desirous of having her chair placed where she imagined them most to abound, even giving them freer access to her knee by turning down her stocking; for, she said, “the cold numbness she suffered just around the patella was eased and relieved by their bite; and that it was even pleasurable;” and, strange to say, these insects bit her nowhere else. The skin at first was pale and sallow, but began now to assume a lively red color; a clear and subtile liquid oozed from every puncture the Ants had left; the swelling and stiffness of the joint gradually abated; and, on the 25th of July, she walked home with the help of a stick, and before winter perfectly recovered the use of her limb.[567] Says Plutarch, as translated by Holland: “The bear finding herself upon fulness given to loth and distaste for food, she goes to find out Ants’ nests, where she sits her down, lilling out her tongue, which is glib and soft with a kind of sweet and slimy humour, until it be full of Ants and their egges, then draweth it she in again, swalloweth them down, and thereby cureth her lothing stomack.”[568] Also, in the Treasurie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we find: “The Bear, being poysoned by the Hearbe named _Mandragoras_, or _Mandrake_, doth purge his bodie by the eating of Ants or Pismires.”[569]