Ch. Vil south America. 65 



pierced through the ikin, an incifion muil be made 

 before ¡t can be taken out. If they are not foon per- 

 ceived, they make their way through the ikin, and 

 take up their K^dsjing between that and the membrane 

 of" the üeíh ; and fucking the blood, form a nidus of 

 neft, covered with a white and fine tegument, refem- 

 bhng a flat pearl ; and the inleét is, as it were, in- 

 chafed in one of the faces, with its head and feet out- 

 wards, for the convenience of feeding, while the 

 hinder part of the Hody is within the tunic, where it 

 depolits its eggs ; el u as the number of thefe increafes, 

 the nidus enlarges, even to the diameter of a line and 

 a half, or two lines, to which magnitude it generally 

 attains in four or five days. There is an ablblute ne- 

 ceflity for extraéting it ; for otherwife it would buril 

 of itfelf, and by that means fcatter an infinite number 

 of germs, refembling nits, in iize, ihapc, and colour, 

 which becoming niguas, would, as it were, undermine 

 the whole foot. They caufe an extreme pain, cfp^- 

 cially during the operation of extracting them ; for 

 fometimes they penetrate even to the bone; and the 

 pain, even after the foot is cleared of them, lafis till 

 the flefh has filled up the cavities they had made, and 

 the Ikin is again clofed. 



The manner of performing this operation is both 

 tedious and troublelbme; the flefh contiguous to the 

 membrane, where the eggs of the infecif are lodged, is 

 feparated with the point of a needle, and thofe eggs Co 

 tenacioufly adhere to the flefh and this membrane, 

 that, to complete the operation without burning the 

 tegument, and putting the patient to the moil acute 

 pain, requires the greateft dexterity. After feparating 

 on every fide the Imall and almoft imperceptible 

 fibres, by which it was fo clofely conneéted with the 

 membranes and mufcles of (be part, the perilla, as 

 they term it, isextraótcd, the dimeniions of which are 

 proportional to the time it has exifted. if unfortu- 

 nately it fliould burfi, the greateft care muft be ufed 



Vol. I. ^ to 



