OF WASHINGTON. 5 



those animals which have been swallowed by chance or purposely 

 (for the sake of committing suicide, etc.) but which are not 

 capable of taking food while in the body ; these animals are 

 generally expelled very soon, or they are killed and partially 

 digested. As an example of this sort, I would mention a case 

 recorded by Bremser. A woman vomited a Bombinator igneus 

 and two years afterwards she confessed she had attempted to 

 commit suicide by swallowing this animal wrapped up in a 

 membrane she obtained from a butcher. Weiss records a similar 

 case. (2) In the spurious parasites I would also include all 

 those objects introduced into the body by patients generally suf 

 fering from hysteria for the sake of perplexing their physicians. 

 One very noted case of this kind is that of a French woman who 

 went to her physician time after time to have some "worms" 

 extracted from her vagina. A zoologist who examined these 

 " worms" was able to show that they were nothing more or less 

 than the entrails of fish which the hysterical patient had herself 

 introduced into her vagina. Quite a number of similar cases 

 have been recorded, and I can here add a case which I believe 

 has never been published. It is recorded in the hospital records 



of the 65th U. S. C. T. that F. B was " admitted to hospital 



Dec. 23, 1865 ; complaint, piles ; Feb. 24, 1866, returned to duty ; 

 Remark This man feigned sick with the piles for two months, 

 when his deception was detected, he having procured the heart 

 of a turkey and introduced it into his rectum to resemble piles." 

 (3) Another class of spurious parasites would be those objects, 

 such as the pulp-cells of lemons and oranges, which have been 

 mistaken for flukes (I had a case of this kind sent to me but a 

 short time ago), various portions of plants which have been de 

 scribed as parasites {Diacanthus polycephalus Stiebel, 1817, 

 proved to be fragments of a bunch of grapes), various animal 

 structures described as parasites (Pkysis intestinalis Scopoli is 

 a portion of the trachea of a bird ; Sagittula hominis is the hyo- 

 laryngeal apparatus of a bird). (4) A fourth kind of spurious 

 parasite would be those " parasites " which exist only in the 

 imagination of various persons. As examples, we may cite 

 Furia inf emails L., an imaginary worm which is supposed to 

 live in the air ; it is said to descend upon the body, bore through 

 it, and cause death in a short time. Vermis umbilicalis is 

 another imaginary worm, said to live in the umbilicus of children ; 

 to diagnose the presence of this fabulous creature it is only neces 

 sary to bind a small fish upon the navel, and in a short time the 

 fish will be entirely skeletonized in case the "worm" is present. 

 I can hardly leave the subject of spurious parasitism without 

 referring to the case of Pastor Doderlein (1697), which is cited 

 by all writers as being the most wonderful case of its kind on 

 record. His 12-year-old boy is said to have passed a small Por- 



