CHEESE WORMS 73 
things subject to invermination is cheese, and epicures 
boast that they know how to grow worms in it to tickle 
the palate, the recipe being one of those that I enumerated 
at the beginning of this letter. But the learned Gassendi 
suggests that flies and other winged animals having de- 
posited or disseminated their seed on leaves and grass, 
these being subsequently eaten by cows, sheep, and goats, 
introduce into milk and cheese the seed capable of pro- 
ducing worms. Many people do not dislike this theory, 
nor do I deny it, but with all due deference to this illus- 
trious philosopher, I cannot understand how those de- 
posits could retain their special powers after having 
passed through the complicated process of mastication 
in the mouth, and of digestion in the stomach, of the ani- 
mals that have swallowed them. What seed could hold 
out, unchanged, against the double action of the pan- 
creatic acid and of the bile in the intestines, whence in 
the passage to the udder it is further acted upon? For 
if Gassendi's idea were correct, one might expect to ob- 
tain mullet and eels from cheese made of woman's milk, 
if the woman had eaten the eggs of the same; or indeed, 
cockerels and pullets, if she had swallowed hen's eggs. 
Many women suck them raw, as they come from the 
nest, though even supposing them to have been eaten 
cooked, by the woman in question, it would have made 
no difference, for, according to Gassendi, cooking does 
not affect the generative principle, as Witness the worms 
that appear in curds, etc. It would seem more probable 
that the invermination of milk, cheese, and curds is due 
to the same cause that I have given above, in the case 
of meats and fish, that is to say, flies deposit eggs in them 
from which worms are hatched, which change into flies. 
This will appear evident to anyone who considers the mat- 
