ANTHOMYIA CANICULARIS. 279 



ed to several quarts. The larvae were all nearly of 

 equal size, and, when first passed, quite alive, 

 moving with great activity. The patient was not 

 aware of having voided anything of the kind before. 

 After the discharge ceased, his health improved, but 

 was by no means perfectly re-established ; and for 

 some months after he was impressed with the belief 

 that more larvse were still in the stomach and intes- 

 tines, though I never was informed in what way, or 

 at what exact period, the complaint terminated. 



It would be a matter of great interest, as well as 

 importance, to ascertain the means by which these 

 larvae were introduced into the human body ; but it 

 is difficult to throw much light on this inquiry. It 

 is observable that the symptoms of which the patient 

 complained first shewed themselves in the spring of 

 the year, which is the season in which, under ordi- 

 nary circumstances, the larvae would be hatched. The 

 larvae were not voided till the summer and autumn 

 following, when they appear to have been nearly, if 

 not quite, full-grown. Hence it would seem proba- 

 ble that they were conveyed into the stomach in the 

 egg state, and that, after being hatched, they passed 

 thence into the intestines ; where they would have no 

 difficulty in finding subsistence, if, as De Geer 

 states of this species, they reside naturally, during 

 this period of their existence, in the ordure of pri- 

 vies. But the question still remains, how, in the 

 first instance, the eggs were introduced into the 

 stomach ; and I can only conjecture that they may 

 have been deposited by the parent fly in some article 

 of food, which had possibly become tainted, or was in 



