110 ACCOUNT OF A NON-DESCRIPT WORM 



Dear Sir, Edin. 11th Nov. 1819. 



Finding that my last communication, regarding the worm 

 in the eyes of horses in India, submitted to the Royal Society 

 by Mr Russell, has been mislaid, I shall now do what in me 

 lies, to replace that loss, in the most satisfactory manner I can, 

 from memory. 



Immediately after my letter upon this subject to Mr Rus- 

 sell, under date 5th February 1816, I applied to several of 

 my friends in India for a specimen of the worm ; and the pa- 

 pers now amissing, consisted of a short letter from myself to 

 Mr Russell, covering the original letter from Mr William 

 Scot, Surgeon of one of the battalions of Madras artillery, 

 along with which he had sent home one of the worms, extract- 

 ed by himself, and which was presented to the Royal Society 

 at the time his letter was read. 



I now regret not having preserved a copy of that letter, but 

 am willing to believe, that in the following recapitulation of 

 its contents, there can be no material error. 



The worm was discovered in the eye of a horse belonging 

 to Lieutenant-Colonel Freese at St Thomas's Mount, on the 

 5th of May 1818, and was extracted next day by Mr Scot, in 

 presence of Colonel Freese, Dr M. S. Moore, and a third per- 

 son, whose name I do not now recollect. Mr Scot's letter was 

 dated 7th May. In it he described the appearance of the eye, 

 much as I had done, in my letter to Mr Russell, and noticed 

 its milky appearance, and the lively motion of the animal in 

 the aqueous humour, comparing the mode of its progress to 

 something resembling leaping, which it seems to me might be 

 no inapt comparison, when the worm was fore-shortened, by 

 moving nearly in the line of vision of the spectator. 



In this instancej it was found necessary to throw down the 

 horse, an attempt to operate while he was standing having 

 failed. The worm was received among tepid water, in a 



China 



