OP THE HUMAN BODY. 41 



SECOND GENUS. 



VESICULAR WORMS. 



§ XXIir. Joseph Ricci, of Paria, about fifty 

 five years old, of a feeble temperament, ami poor- 

 ly fed, having been for three months subject to at- 

 tacks of intermittent fever, and tormented by vio- 

 lent ajffections of the mind, was seized in the road, 

 on the morning of November 26, 1797? with great 

 torpor of the lower extremities. Dragging himself 

 along with a reeling and uncertain step, he was 

 suddenly taken with a severe pain of the upper 

 part of his head, and at the instant he cried for 

 help, he fell senseless to the ground. He was im- 

 mediately conveyed to the clinical hospital, where I 

 found him in an apoplectic fit, of a character altogeth- 

 er asthenic or nervous, as most physicians call it. 

 Excitants were applied both externally and inter- 

 nally without eJQPect, as the man died the following 

 midnight. 



On examining the body and finding nothing re- 

 markable in the external substance of the brain, 

 we attempted to open the two lateral ventricles, 

 and found them filled with a bloody serum. Here 

 an unexpected phenomenon presented itself ; two 

 large clusters of hydatids extended along the branch- 

 es of the plexus choroides to which they were 

 intimately attached, so closely that to separate 

 them I was obliged to tear the substance of the 

 plexus. (ISO) Each cluster of hydatids was about 

 two inches in length, large and extended at its in- 



