402 ANIMAL PARASITES. 



places with a hard substratum, its growth is seen to take place 

 with extraordinary rapidity, according to Pruner. From 4'" it 

 becomes several inches long in a couple of days. It is then easily 

 killed by poultices of boiled garlic, after which it is absorbed 

 without any injurious consequences, or when it lies quite on the 

 surface, the latter is cut, and the worm pulled out with a hook. 

 The slave-dealers rub in civet and musk at the first appearance of 

 symptoms. Frequently, however, the worm produces no annoy- 

 ance for a long time. Dampier and Isert had already quitted 

 the native district of the worm for 6 8 months, and Wengler's 

 patient for 4 6 months, before the worm betrayed itself by any 

 troublesome symptoms. According to others, this may last 12 

 15 months, and according to Kampfer even until the third year. 

 At other times the patients become emaciated, notwithstanding a 

 very good appetite, and freedom from fever, and at last die of ex- 

 haustion. When the worm is ready to come out, a small pustule 

 appears at the point where it will break through, sometimes without 

 any preliminary annoyance, sometimes with uneasy sensations, head- 

 ache, pain in the stomach, nausea, fever, and formation of vesicles 

 at the point of breaking through, inflammation, swelling, and suppu- 

 ration for several days previously ; and also, if the worm lies at 

 a joint, with prevention of the use of the limb affected. In 

 Drummond himself stiffness and slight pain in the biceps femoris 

 first set in, without preventing his walking ; in a few days there 

 was swelling without pain, and alteration of colour. A few days 

 afterwards a reddish swelling, with a black point in the centre, 

 was formed an inch above the inside of the ankle; and at the 

 same time he felt with his finger a firm, round, catgut-like, twisted 

 substance under the skin. Two days afterwards (about three 

 weeks after the first sensation of stiffness) Drummond awoke at 

 night with sudden insupportable itching over the whole body, 

 general febrile symptoms, violent colic, vomiting, and purgation ; 

 after which shivering without perspiration followed. In the 

 mean time the swelling had burst, and in its place there appeared 

 a hard white substance, but so deep that it could not belaid hold 

 of, because the animal had buried itself deeper amongst the 

 muscles in the night. Nothing more was now to be felt at the 

 surface of the firm, catgut-like swelling. In the following night 

 the neighbourhood of the ankle became inflamed, and on the 

 second day afterwards walking was impossible. Three days after- 

 wards Drummond passed a thread round the animal, and then a 



