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XV. — On the Minute Structure of certain substances expelled from 

 the human intestine, having the ordinary appearance of shreds 

 of Lymph, hut consisting entirely of filaments of a Confervoid 

 type, probably belonging to the genus Oscillatoria. By Arthur 

 Farrk, M.D.j F.R.S. 



Read June 22, 1842. 



On a former occasion I laid before the Society the results of my 

 observations upon a remarkable and exceedingly rare parasite of the 

 human body, the larva of the Anthomyia canicularis, which was ex- 

 pelled in vast numbers from the intestine. The subject of the pre- 

 sent communication must also, I presume, be classed under the head 

 of parasites, but occurring under such a remarkable form, as to ren- 

 der the determination of its precise nature a matter of not very easy 

 accomplishment. 



The individual from whom the substances which I shall describe 

 were obtained, is a married female, aged thirty-five, residing at No. 

 28, Crown Street, Soho, who is now attending as an out-patient under 

 my care, at King's College Hospital. She is a moderately stout and 

 healthy looking person, but has been slightly ailing for the last twelve 

 months, and for six weeks past has been subject to menorrhagia, by 

 which she has been somewhat debilitated: she has also suffered lately 

 from slight dispepsia. Six days ago, after suffering considerable grip- 

 ing pains in the bowels, which continued for twelve hours, she passed 

 per anum a number of shreds, which being discharged with some 

 difficulty, and causing an obstruction of the bowel, her attention was 

 thereby more particularly attracted, and some of the shreds were pull- 

 ed away by herself, so that there can be no question as to the source 

 whence they were derived. 



The substances thus passed were placed in water, and brought by 

 the patient for my inspection. They had so much the appearance 

 and ordinary characters of shreds of lymph, or false membrane, that I 

 had not at that time the slightest suspicion of their being anything 

 else, and merely reserved them for a more particular examination at 

 some future period, but without any expectation that they would pre- 

 sent appearances different from the ordinary microscopic characters 

 of false membrane. I was therefore much surprised, on placing a 

 small portion of the substance under the microscope, to find that it 

 presented the appearance of a mass of Conferva, and that, in fact, the 



