FILAKIA MEDINENSIS. 391 



tlie southern and eastern borders of which the worm still occurs. 

 But however this may be, it is certain that Agatharchides knew 

 very well that there was a disorder in those districts which owed 

 its origin to a snake-like structure, which we now know as a 

 worm, and indeed as Filaria medinensis. Many authors, led 

 astray by the last addition " that these creatures have never 

 occurred anywhere else, or subsequently" have thought, certainly 

 erroneously, that the narration of Agatharchides, quoted by 

 Plutarch, was nothing but the altered tradition of the fiery 

 serpents which the Lord sent upon the children of Israel during 

 their stay in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea (Numbers xxi, 6). 

 At the same time it was supposed either that this Mosaic 

 narrative had been explained erroneously and arbitrarily by 

 Agatharchides himself, or that it had come to his ears in a 

 mutilated form, by hearsay. 



If we have thus ascertained that Agatharchides really intended 

 the true Filaria medinensis, we are at once led to a repeated 

 examination of that Mosaic passage, which has in fact rendered 

 it not improbable to us that Moses is the first writer who has 

 referred to our worm, and that he has really meant the Medina 

 worm by the fiery serpents D^SnitfJl D^JTDn. From the article 

 before Seraphim it appears (to which M. Michael called my 

 attention) that a particular species of Nachasch (serpents) is 

 referred to. All the translators (the Polyglott bible and the 

 septuagint) have rendered both words by o<Cj an d in the 

 parallel passages also (Book of Wisdom, xvi, 5 ; and 1 Cor. x, 9) 

 we also read only o^?ic- It is clear that the translators took no 

 trouble about it, and only translated the word Nechaschim, but 

 left the word Seraphim quite untranslated. Had they been 

 exact they must have written at o^gtg ai a^fa^x/i. From them, 

 therefore, we learn nothing, and we must go back to the primary 

 signification of the word Seraphim, which the commentators 

 render by draco, serpentulus venenatus or comburentes dolores 

 faciens. In itself, Seraphim, derived from the word Saraph, can 

 signify nothing more than is, qui comburit, and it is clear that a 

 species of animal is referred to which is distinguished by the 

 inflammability of its bite, or generally by the inflammation which 

 its presence causes. On this account Laborde thought that 

 scorpions are referred to in this passage, an opinion which I 

 cannot allow to pass, because in the first place the scorpions have 

 nothing in common with the serpents in their external form or 



