HELMINTIIOLOGY HELMINTHES NEMATODES. 451 



bilious feculent contents of the crecura and colon, in 

 typhus. 



The following cases are new contributions to the history of 

 the Filaria medinensis. Mr. W. S. Oke (Provincial Medical 

 Journal, Lond. 1843, vol. vi, p. 446) states that a seaman, 

 twenty years old, arrived at Cape Coast Castle in June, 

 1842, where he remained sixty-five days, during which period 

 he was on shore once, for three hours ; on this occasion he 

 wore no shoes, and found the sands and rocks so hot that 

 he could not with impunity put his feet on the ground. 

 Numerous Africans visited the ship daily, many of whom 

 were affected with the Guinea worm, and presented suppu- 

 rating sores caused by that parasite. The seaman above 

 mentioned arrived at Southampton on the 14th of October, 

 in good health, and remarked in the middle of May 1843, a 

 sore on his left instep. This continued with little pain or 

 inconvenience, in the form of a pustule, for about a fort- 

 night. When this pustule was ruptured, a white cord-like 

 substance, about the size of a violin string, was expressed 

 from it, which the patient extracted to the length of five 

 inches, and cut off. This was succeeded on the next day 

 by erysipelatous inflammatioii, which gradually extended 

 over the upper part of the foot and half way up the leg, and 

 suppurating in various places, ceased with the removal of the 

 remainder of the worm, two and a half feet in length. On 

 the 23d of May a similar pustule arose in the lower part of 

 the left fore-arm, from which, upon its being scratched by 

 the patient, another Filaria made its appearance. This was 

 thirty-two inches in length, and was cautiously extracted in 

 the course of fourteen days. At this time also the convo- 

 lutions of a third worm were seen and felt under the cutis on 

 the dorsum of the right foot, but no local inflammation was 

 set up in that situation. As the otherwise perfectly healthy 

 seaman, during his stay in Africa had suffered only from a 

 small ulcer on the outer side of his right thigh, Mr. Oke 

 supposes that the larvae of the Dracunculus were introduced 

 into the body through this sore. In another case, a soldier 



