NOTES. isr 



Bierous, and that they are not situated in irritable 

 and sensible parts. In these instances the worms 

 siuTly are no cause of disease. This accidental 

 circumstance cannot establish a general rule, and 

 the best practitioners have condemned a proposi- 

 tion so badly applied. They have also demon- 

 strated as extravagant the opiuion of those Ameri- 

 can physicians, who have pretended that a small 

 number of worms might be beneficial to the health 

 of children ; according to their opinion, these 

 worms may be intended by provident nature to 

 consume the superabundance of nutritious sub- 

 stances in the body of children. The want of 

 worms, according to these physicians, would be a 

 state of disease ; in truth, they have not omitted 

 to speak, in the nosology of that part of the world, 

 of this particular class of complaints,. What ex- 

 travagance of the human understanding ! exclaims 

 Weikard, Elementi di medicina, etc. Pavia^ 1800, 

 Tom. ii, Fac. ii. p. 71. 



(87) In fact Brown^ Weikard and other mod- 

 ern observers have reduced the disorders, occasion- 

 ed by worms, to the class of asthenic diseases ; in 

 the classification of diseases they precede tabes, 

 or if you please, the general consumption of the 

 body. See Brown, Elem. di Medicina, Roma, 

 4797; 8°. vol. ii. p. 280, §§ DLXIX, DLXX. 



F,.VD OF THE NOTFS OF THE SECOND tECTURE. 



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