end the Sting of Scorpions in India. 103 



insects, is, according to Linnaeus, of the order of Lomen- 

 tacece and of the genus Guilandina. Botanists have distin- 

 guished two species, the bonduc and the honducella. They 

 have made no observation upon the colour of the seeds; but 

 I saw a lady of Bengal, on her way to Europe, who gave her 

 child, when attacked by an intermittent fever, these seeds 

 of a clear brown colour, in preference to Peruvian bark. 



The reason you assign why the Bramins are less subject 

 to the Guinea worm than the other natives, led you to a 

 verv natural conclusion. I must sav, however, that I have 

 remarked the same difference in the susceptibility of our 

 officers and that of the common soldiers, having often thirty 

 of the latter under my care at once, and not one of the for- 

 mer. Not observing any difference in their food which might 

 lead me to the same conclusion with yourself, I thought 

 these soldiers contracted the above malady by sleeping on 

 brick pavements, as was once the custom, and that the re- 

 medy really was to make them lie upon wooden benches, 

 which are now erected in all our barracks and guardhouses. 



We know well that the ichneumon fly lodges its eggs in 

 the silk-worm wherever it can find a corner convenient 

 enough for its future subsistence ; and we see worms every 

 day even in the kernels of fruits, which had been deposited 

 as an eag, without the least exterior sign : we cannot al- 

 lege, with propriety, that worms enter into the bodies of 

 animals by the organs of deglutition or digestion, when we 

 see them in the eyes of horses and the livers of sheep. 



I am inclined to believe that the Guinea worm is intro- 

 duced into the human body in the same way as various other 

 insects which deposit their progeny there, or in the state of 

 an egg it is sucked up from the humid earth by means of 

 the absorbents of the skin. Whatever it may be, it is our 

 duty to do our endeavours to destroy it ; and, as assafoetida 

 is known over all the world, recourse may be had to it both 

 as a preservative and a cure. 



In my whole practice I never found an}' thing so effi- 

 cacious as cataplasms made of cattalc or aloe liltoralis] a re- 

 medy which was communicated to me by a Hindoo. The 

 (i 4 saponaceous 



