252 APPENDIX. 



as the cause of the complaint, her having fallen asleep in the air near some 

 stagnant water, and on waking found her mouth and nose full, as she 

 said, of young gnats. I suppose she got well, for after a few more baths 

 I never heard anything more of her, which I judge I should have done 

 had she not got well, for certain it is, she found a direct and powerful 

 remedy in the use of the fumigations for dislodging these worms, not in 

 hundreds, but I may safely say in thousands. 



IV. 



On the Minute Anatomy of the Larva of Anthomyia canicularis, 

 Meiyen. By ARTHUR FARRE, M.D., F.R.S. 



(Read before the Microscopical Society, April 28th, 1841.) 



" The subject of the present memoir has come under my notice as a 

 parasite of the human body, of which, however, it appears to be a rare 

 inhabitant, as I have met with but a single instance of the kind, and I 

 believe there are only two or three similar cases on record. 



" The mere circumstance, however, of this insect in its larva state being 

 found in the human intestine, it is not now so much my object to record, 

 as it is to bring before the Society a brief description of the minute 

 anatomy of this singular parasite, with a view of showing the peculiar 

 adaptation of its organs, particularly those of the digestive system, to the 

 circumstances in which it is thus occasionally placed. 



" The insect considered as a parasite appears to have its parallel in the 

 CEstrus or bot of the horse and sheep, and may perhaps be considered as 

 constituting the bot of the human subject, though it does not appear to be 

 altogether limited to man, but has been also observed to occur in the Boa 

 constrictor .* 



" The case which afforded me the opportunity of making the following 

 observations was that of a rather sickly child, a girl five years of age, who 

 was brought as an out-patient to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in the 

 month of June, 1837, having the ordinary symptoms of irritation produced 

 by worms, for which a brisk purgative was prescribed. This had the 

 effect of bringing away a vast quantity of the parasites, which were stated 

 to be alive at the time they were passed, and were described by the parent 

 of the child as coming away by handfuls at a time, and which con- 

 tinued to be passed at intervals for three weeks, when the case was lost 

 sight of. 



" A similar case occurred to Dr. Haviland of Cambridge, in the year 

 1836, in the person of a clergyman seventy years of age, who, after suffering 

 disagreeable sensations about the epigastrium, which he described as a 

 tremulous motion, accompanied by loss of appetite and general weakness, 

 passed in the summer and autumn of the same year very large quantities 

 of the larvae, and, according to his own statement, the chamber-vessel was 

 sometimes half full, and he thinks that altogether he must have passed 



< See 'Lancet,' vol. ii, 1839-40, p. 638. 



