THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 263 



Fig. 24. — Transection of appendage of eighth abdominal spiracle. 

 ,, 25. — Lateral view of abdominal spiracle (1-7) covered with 



epithelial cells. 

 M 26. — Dorsal aspect eighth abdominal spiracle. 

 II 27. — Ventral n << " « 



,, 28. — Third, fourth and fifth abdominal spiracles of pupa of 



Odotoma plicatiila. 

 II 29. — Fifth abdominal spiracle of same. 



A PARASITE THE SUPPOSED CAUSE OF SOME CASES OF 



EPILEPSY. 



BY G. H. FRENCH, CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS. 



Gastrophilus epilepsalis, n. sp. 



Larva : Length, 1-12 inch; of the shape shown in the accompany- 

 ing figure (Fig. 30), with twelve joints besides the head, or thirteen joints ; 

 head rounded, with two brown-black hooks, the side view of the cut 

 showing only one of them ; head a little longer than broad, rounded ; 

 the first incisure with a patch of bristles below the hooks, 

 but not anywhere else ; incisures 2 and 3 without bristles ; 

 incisures 4 to 12 armed with several rows of minute 

 bristles, all very short except those on 12, pointing back- 

 ward; joint 13 rounded. Extending back from the hooks 

 and of the same colour, only in places paler, is a marking 

 that seems to be a chitinoid support for the hooks, beneath 

 the cuticle. Colour a dirty yellowish white. 



Usually it is not wise to describe a species as new 

 from a larva, but for the following reasons it seems best in 

 "^" ^°' this case. Last November, at the meeting of the Southern 

 Illinois Medical Association, in Chester, 111., Doctor H. C. AdderJy, of 

 that town, reported to the Association a case under his charge of a boy, 

 then 10 years old, who had been subject to epileptic spasms for four 

 years, often having as many as twenty spasms in twenty-four hours. 

 Upon producing a free catharthesis (the general condition of the bowels 

 being constipated), he noticed that the excreta was " literally alive " with 



