FILABIA MEDINENSIS. 407 



use the same vessels that are employed by the patient in 

 bathing, washing, or washing the feet, and that great caution 

 should be observed with the bandages of such patients. As 

 regards the prevalence of infection with the worm at particular 

 seasons of the year, people are accustomed to seek the reason for 

 this in certain conditions of climate and season, but as far as I 

 know, they have entirely overlooked the causes which lie in the 

 nature of the worm itself. The principal question to be cleared 

 up here is, whether the maturity of the eggs, that is to say the 

 development of the living embryos, like their parents, is not con- 

 nected with particular seasons of the year and with certain 

 months. In the mean time double caution is to be observed in 

 the native country of the worm at the periods which have been 

 found by general experience to be most dangerous for infection. 



There are still the cases in which Filaria medinensis has been 

 seen under the conjunctiva, which are deserving of particular 

 consideration. Of these, that of Mongin in St. Domingo, and 

 that of Bajon in Cayenne, are the most authentic. Mongin's 

 patient complained for twenty-four hours of a violent pain without 

 inflammation. A worm appeared to creep across her eye. When 

 Mongin wished to seize this worm with the forceps, he observed 

 that it was between the conjunctiva and the albuginea. If the 

 cornea was approached from without, violent pain was produced. 

 He then opened the conjunctiva and drew forth a worm 1~ inches 

 long, of the thickness of the E-string of a violin, thicker at one 

 end than at the other, but punctured at both ends. This case 

 serves as a rule of action when the seat of the Filaria is in this 

 place. 



2. Immature species of Filaria found in the human lens. 



Besides the Filaria medinensis a second species has been 

 found in Europe in the human eye, which been mentioned by 

 authors sometimes as Filaria oculi humani, and sometimes as 

 Filaria lentis (Diesing). All my endeavours to obtain the original 

 specimens have been in vain. M. Jiingken, who had the cour- 

 tesy most readily to permit my inquiries, informed me that he 

 had handed over the specimens found in a first case, to the well 

 known deceased helminthologist, Von Nordmaun, and given the 

 Filaria found in a second case to another student of helminthology. 

 The Filaria> of Yon Ammon and Gescheidt, which Von Ammon 



