VERMINOUS DISEASES. 313 



'^ A. woman of middle age, whose voracity was 

 unquestionable, gave me the following history of her 

 case. Some years before, she had been attacked 

 with a disagreealde, painful sensation in the lum- 

 bar region. 1 presume from her account of the seat 

 of it, that it was in the kidneys: soon afterwards 

 she suspected that she discharged, with the urine, 

 some small worms ; a careful attention confirmed 

 her suspicion : the worms, when first voided, kept 

 moving in the urine, and died in about half an 

 hour. A few weeks afterwards she found, that in- 

 stead of worms, she discharged very small winged 

 insects, all of which, I believe, were dead ; these 

 soon disappeared, and with them all her com- 

 plaints. Subsequent to that period, the same 

 symptoms had recurred, two or three times every 

 year. 



*• She gave me one or two of each kind of these 

 little animals, preserved in spirit. They were, I 

 presume, the same species in different states. The 

 worms were about two thirds as long as the larg- 

 est maggots foiind in cheese ; but probably not 

 half so large in circumference. The flies or gnats 

 appeared to be about twice as large as the winged 

 aphides, or lice found on cabbages ; but all of them 

 were so much contracted and changed, by the ac- 

 tion of the spirit, that with the naked eye I could 

 obtain but a very imperfect idea of them. I deter- 

 red examining them with a microscope, hoping to 

 obtain some in a better state of preservation ; but in 



this I was disappointed ; the woman, finding that no 

 4(1 



