300 WORMING. 



voured to prove it a specific inflammation of all these organs, parti- 

 cularly aflFecting their nervous tissues ; and which we know, by 

 the symptomatic paralysis observed, and the morbid sympathies 

 present. It is impossible, therefore, that all these parts can be 

 generally aifected, but that so large and so sensitive a contiguous 

 and even continuous mass as the tongue must receive its full share 

 of the morbid derangement. We have seen that, in one variety 

 of the disease, the respiratory nervous tissues seem to suffer par- 

 ticularly; and that in the other (called dumb madness) the digestive 

 are principally affected ; in which case, the virus appears to act 

 with more than ordinary violence on the whole alimentary track ; 

 and, as might be expected, with the vast tumefaction which follows 



Plurima per catulos rabies, invictaque tardis 

 Praecipitat letale malum : sic tutius ergo 

 Anteire auxiliis, et primas vincere causas. 

 Namque subit, nodis qua lingua tenacibus haeret, 

 (Vermiculum dixere) mala atque incondita pestis. 



Ille, ubi salsa siti percepit viscera long^, 

 iEstivos vibrans accensis febribus ignes, 

 Moliturque fugas, et sedem spernit amatam. 

 Scilicet hoc motu, stimulisque potentibus acti, 

 In furias vertere canes, ergo insita ferro 

 Jam teneris elementa mali causasque recidunt*. 



Nil tamen usque adeo prodest, ac prima sub ipsum 

 Principium morbi rescindere semina ferro. 

 Nam qua parte imo conjungi lingua palato 

 Cernitur, et fauces nativo concolor auro 

 Occupat, in rabiemque feros agit usque Molossos 

 Vulnificus vermis, suffunditque ora veneno : 

 Uuem si quis potuit ferro resecare, potentem 

 Is tanti abstulerit causam, stimulumque furorisf . 



Gesner, however, jealous for the reputation of the Greeks, observes that their 

 medical writers did not actually believe that this substance was a worm ; but 

 that by lytta, they understood the disease itself, and not this suspected portion of 

 tongue. The Cynosophium in proof of this has, rioa-fif*ara ^I»T(J< kwZv rpia. 

 "kva-a-a, iroiaypay Kuvay^tt iXX' h fxEi vo^faypa. ov Teairn ataa-raro^, h Je xuvayji^n 

 ivcaTOi, i) ii "Kvfffa tl; Qxiatoy <pepn, — Cap. viii, sec. 53. 



• (jliHt. Falisfi Cyncgcticon, 383. 



f Hier. Fiaiastorii Akon. 1G9. 



