406 ANIMAL PARASITES. 



the worms, from which, as a matter of course, violent nervous 

 attacks, contractions, stiffness of the limbs, &c., must result. 

 Bremser even upbraids Larrey with only having an ordinary 

 furunculus before him, because the worm does not occur in Lower 

 Egypt. The latter statement is untrue, for Griesinger and others 

 have treated the worm in Cairo. 



The prophylaxis is at present unknown. It appears, however, 

 to be most probable, that in the regions where the Filaria is 

 endemic, its youngest brood n5ay live free in the water, or in 

 damp grass, or in the moist soil, and that the brood gets upon 

 the naked parts of the body in wading through the rivers, pools, 

 marshes, or tanks with naked feet, sleeping without clothes upon 

 the bare ground, or with the water which flows over the naked 

 upper parts of the body, &c., when carrying water-vessels upon 

 the head or back. Pruner's observation also, that the Filaria 

 occurs especially in the feet of carnivorous animals, such as dogs 

 and gulls, and rarely or scarcely ever in those of the herbivora, is 

 well worth consideration. Perhaps it may yet be proved that 

 besides the higher Carmvora, the water-birds and wad ing- birds 

 are also attacked. We certainly know nothing further as to 

 whether the immigration is connected with a certain time of the 

 day, as the young Gordii with the night, and whether any particular 

 care must be taken in the morning, in the heat of the day, or at 

 night. But however this may be, it is for the present advisable 

 that every one, in the native country of the worm, should be on. 

 their guard against bathing, wading through streams with naked 

 feet, with torn boots, with shoes over which the water rises, &c. 



It must also be mentioned, that as only females appear to have 

 been found (except by Clelland), some people suppose that the 

 migrating brood must be already impregnated before immi- 

 gration. 



The controversy as to whether or no the worm is so far infec- 

 tious that it is transferred from a patient attacked by it to other 

 people in his vicinity, is regarded as decided by Pruner, who 

 says, that it is proved by numerous facts that even in those 

 tropical regions where the worm is riot endemic, an actual transfer 

 from one man to another, or to dogs and horses, takes place. 

 The clearest proof of this, on a large scale, is furnished by Bremser 

 in the statement that, even in his time, the worm had become 

 naturalised in Cura9oa by the importation of negro slaves. This 

 leads necessarily to the prophylactic precept, that no one should 



