452 REPORT ON ZOOLOGY, MDCCCXLIV. 



on liis return to Paris, after a service of two and a half years 

 in Senegal, where he frequently marched harefoot on the 

 moist soil, there arose, four months after his arrival m 

 France, on the dorsum of the left foot, a furuncle, from 

 which, upon its being opened, a nematoid worm, nine inches 

 long, came out ; a second worm was extracted at the upper 

 end of the fibula. In the worms, as well as in the purulent 

 matter of both the abscesses caused by them, were myriads 

 of minute living animalcules, which Maisonneuve recognised 

 as the embryos of the Avorm. (Archives Generates, 1844, 

 p. 472, or the Mecl. Chirurg. Review, No. 84, 1815, p. 579.) 

 Two Dracunculi, not more than an inch in length, were 

 extracted from beneath the conjunctiva of two Africans, by 

 Loney. (The Lancet, June, 1844.) Here also, probably, 

 belongs the case mentioned by Lallemand (Caspar's Wochen- 

 schrift, 1841, Nr. 52, p. 842) of a Negro in Brazil, who, in 

 July, 1844, complained of an itching feel in the globe of 

 the eye, as if something was crawling about in it. Lalle- 

 mand perceived above the cornea, and between the conjunc- 

 tiva and sclerotica, a white serpentine filament, which in a 

 short time crept upwards. Through a puncture in the con- 

 junctiva he succeeded in extracting the worm piecemeal by 

 means of a pair of forceps ; a third of it was left behind, 

 and gradually disappeared entirely. The portion of worm 

 extracted measured three fourths of an inch. According to 

 Boston (Medical and Surgical Journal, June, 1843, or Allge- 

 meine Medizinische Central-Zeitung, Nr. 39, 1841, p. 312) 

 the Guinea worm is endemic at the elevated Cape Coast in 

 West Africa, and attains a length of from two to six feet, 

 occurring most commonly in the lower extremities, but 

 locating itself also in the orbit and beneath the tongue. 

 Some attribute the origin of the worm to drinking the 

 water of the country, others to bathing in green stagnant 

 water. The Europeans consequently in that country 

 make use of water which has been kept in reservoirs of 

 their own, in which the Guinea worm is said never to 

 occur ; nevertheless, Boston says that he has observed 



