THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 83 



GASTROPHILUS EPILEPSALIS LARV^ AND EPILEPSY. 



BY G. H. FRENCH, CARBONDALE, ILL. 



In the October number of the St. Paul Medical Journal, Dr. Burnside 

 Foster, the editor, gives a very interesting case of larvae found in the 

 cutaneous tissues of a three weeks old infant, that a specialist in Dipter- 

 ology identified as the above species. The case was not one of Dr. 

 Foster's patients, but was from Superior, Wis. If the identification is 

 correct, and I see no reason why it should not be, for the specialist was 

 the same one who identified the first larva found in the boy at Chester, 

 Illinois, as a Gastrophilus, and he had one of the types before him for 

 comparison, the case is important. How they came to be in the child's 

 skin is an interesting question, and in a brief note in reply to Dr. Foster's 

 article, I suggested an examination of the excreta of the mother. 



In the November number of the same journal, Prof. F. L. Washburn, 

 State Entomologist of Minnesota, publishes a paper on the same subject. In 

 the issue for January i6th of the Journal of the American Medical Associ- 

 ation, Prof. Washburn has an article that is nearly a copy of the one in the 

 St. Paul Medical Journal. It is of a few statements in these two articles 

 that I wish to speak. 



I do not know whether the fly producing these larvre is a Gastro- 

 philus or not, and that question can not be settled till some of the living 

 larv?e are found and bred. One of the best authorities on Diptera in the 

 United States says they are, and there it will have to rest till breeding 

 proves him right or wrong. 



I never assumed that by naming this larva Epilipsalis it was *///<? 

 cause of epilepsy. In fact, epilepsy is not a disease, but a symptom result- 

 ing from some irritation somewhere in the body of a neurotic with a spasm 

 tendency. But that this has been in five cases the source of irritation, or 

 at least one of the sources, there is no question in the minds of those 

 knowing the conditions. In two of these cases, the two best known to 

 myself, the removal of the parasites from the system cured the cases. 

 Again, in the five cases where these larvae had been found previous to the 

 Wisconsin infant, the hosts were epileptics. I have said before that from 

 the wide distribution of the insect the probability is that it is not an 

 uncommon human parasite, but that its small size — -one-twelfth of. an inch 

 long — and causing so little irritation in ordinary individuals, its presence 

 has been overlooked. Previous to Dr. Foster's case it had been found in 

 three places in Illinois, one in Kentucky and one in Indian Territory. 



Prof. Washburn says : " This intestinal parasite evidently has no con- 

 nection whatever with epilepsy, and is wrongly named." The italic is 

 mine. The last clause of the statement is answered above. As to the 



