594 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683. 



over the lower, in some were plain ; in others crenated ; in others^ the great 

 protuberatings at the side I'endered the whole worm serrated. 4. Usually the 

 same joint is much of a size throughout; but the upper extreme something 

 less than the lower. But in one I took out of a dog, I observed that towards 

 the tail, the upper part of the joint, by which it was fastened to the foregoing 

 joint, was very slender ; in the middle broad ; and towards the other extreme 

 grew taper again ; so that it well enough resembled the figure, (fig. 6, pi. IQ,) 

 which Cornel. Gemma has given of it. Not that the whole worm, as he has 

 made it, was so ; but only some of the last joints. And in another I took out 

 of the same dog I could not observe the same thing ; as neither did I in a third, 

 I took out of another dog, which was about two yards long; whereas these were 

 each but about a foot or a foot and half long. 



4. As to the length of this worm, it is sometimes as long as all the guts; not 

 that it lies extended straight the length of the guts, as those might think, who 

 fondly imagined it was nothing else but a mucous skin, orspolium of the same: 

 but it lies convoluted in several places; so that it often vastly exceeds the whole 

 length of the guts themselves. Platerus observed one 40 feet long ; and Pliny 

 says, they are sometimes 300 feet or more. Thaddaeus Dunus saw voided by a 

 woman one piece of this worm 5 yards long ; and another, above 20 yards long. 

 Yet in neither he could observe either the head or the tail. But what Olaus 

 Borrichius tells us is remarkable; that a patient of his, in a year's time, has 

 voided 800 feet of this sort of worm, but in several pieces; and that 200 feet 

 of it he kept by him ; and that hitherto he has not met with the head. For 

 the patient observed, that always in the voiding it, he perceived it break off; 

 that he has not yet come to the end; and still goes on in voiding the same. 

 Which I could parallel with an instance of a person here in town, once my pa- 

 tient, who has voided vast quantities of this worm, for several years together ; 

 but in several pieces, 2, 3, 4, 6, or more yards long; but all put together, 

 would much exceed the length of that of Borrichius. Tulpius says he showed, 

 in the Anatomy Theatre, 40 yards of this worm ; which was voided by one in 

 two days time. However I question whether all those pieces which are voided 

 by the same person, may be always reputed parts of the same worm, or of dif- 

 ferent. Hippocrates, or whoever was the author of that book ascribed to him, 

 asserts, that it is bred in the child whilst yet in the womb. But Spigelius, on 

 inquiry both of the midwives, in Germany and Italy, could never be informed 

 that they observed these worms in new-born infants. But as to Spigelius's 

 reasons why there should be no more than one in the body at a time, I shall 

 only give this answer, that on dissection of a dog I observed two entire ones ; 

 but each not much above a foot long. So that the answer he gives to that 



