314 TREATMENT OF 



relief was to be expected from medicine, was very 

 unwilling even to think of such a subject, to her so 

 very disagreeable ; and, in the mean time, those that 

 I had preserved in a phial, by accident, were 

 thrown away. 1 regret very much that I could not 

 obtain more particular information respecting them ; 

 it might not indeed be of much practical utility, but 

 it would gratify our curiosity to know whether the 

 same species could be found elsewhere ; and if it 

 could, its history might enable us to account more 

 satisfactorily for the appearances. These worms 

 probably proceeded, at least in the first instance, 

 from ovula, which had passed the stomach and lac- 

 teals to the kidneys. 



^*The ascarides indeed sometimes enter the uri- 

 nary passages from without, and may be supposed 

 capable of penetrating as far as the kidneys ; but to 

 them the salts of the human body are not disagree- 

 able ; to these worms it was otherwise ; it is prob- 

 able that in water, the element natural to the lar- 

 vae of gnats, they would have lived very well ; 

 but in urine they suffered, and in half an hour di- 

 ed. 



" Whether the eggs were all taken in at the same 

 time, their hatching being suspended to different 

 periods, by the powers of the living body ; or 

 whether they were received at different times ; or 

 in fine, whether those discharged at the several suc- 

 cessive periods, were successive generations, prop- 

 agated within the body, I shall not undertake to 

 determine." 



