VERMINOUS DISEASES. 151 



found in the human body can justly be called vesi- 

 cular worms, and that these vesicular worms be- 

 long to the class of the hermit vesicular worms of 

 Bloch,{^0) or to the social vesicular worm, as others 

 have pretended,(51) against the observations re- 

 peated even by Block. Before we can confidently 

 decide what morbid symptoms they produce, and 

 which may announce, if not certainly at least with 

 probability, the existence of these worms in any 

 particular part of the body, the researches of phy- 

 sicians must be directed by those of naturalists. 



SYMPTOMS OF THE TRICOCEPnALUS. 



§. LXXXVII. Tliis worm according to authors, 

 having no biting organ, all the inconveniences it 

 produces must arise from its irritating the intes- 

 tines, chiefly the large, exciting those diseases which 

 depend on a morbid irritation of the intestinal tube. 

 Collected in great numbers they deprive the system 

 of its requisite nourishment, and contribute to lessen 

 its strength. Inflammation and dilatation of the 

 intestines, occasioned by these worms, though rare, 

 have been noticed by several practitioners. (52) 



§ LXXXYIII. They have been found in the 

 bodies of soldiers who have died of a contagious 

 epidemic ;(5i) among miserable people, poorly fed, 

 who have fallen victims to some slow nervous fe- 

 ver ;( 4) among infants nursed and detained in or- 

 phan houses, who have been attacked with typhus 

 accompanied with petechiae.(.')5) This worm com- 



