VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQS 



observation of Forestus, who mentions twelve voided at the same time, that 

 they were only parts of the same worm, though often it may be true, yet 

 sometimes it may be otherwise; especially, where we see such prodigious quan- 

 tities are voided of them. However this is undeniable, and must be allowed, 

 that this worm is vastly long, which plainly appears even by those pieces we see 

 of them ; for, besides the instances already given, Simon Schultzius mentions 

 one 7 yards long, and another 9 yards. Clusius tells us, that the Duke of 

 Austria's cook voided pieces of this worm, 6, 12, and 15 yards long. Jacobus 

 Oethasus measured one 18 yards long. Alexander Camerarius has seen them 

 above 20 yards long. In the palace at Tiguri is kept the figure of one 18 feet 

 long: and abundance of more instances I could give were it needful. 



But I shall describe that piece of one (fig. 1, pi. 19,) I have by me, voided 

 by a young man about 20 years of age, on the use of an emulsion of the cold 

 seeds, who plainly perceived it alive, and to move ; and having put it in a wide 

 mouthed glass, it often endeavoured by raising its body to get out ; but the 

 cold water into which it was put afterwards soon killed it. I measured it, 

 and found it 24 feet, or 8 yards long. In it I numbered 507 joints. Its colour 

 was extreme white, being turgid with chyle; its body flat, about the thickness 

 of half a crown, where thickest; and the joints towards the tail about 4- of an 

 inch broad ; those toward the head about ^ as broad as those towards the tail, 

 and here the joints were not ^ of an inch long, whereas those at the tail were 

 of a full inch long, and something more ; and from the head they seemed gra- 

 dually to increase in length. The joints much of a wideness throughout; and 

 the jetting edges of the former over the latter usually plain and even ; unless 

 where the contraction of the body had rendered them a little crimpled. The 

 flats of both sides just alike; and without any spots, protuberances, or any 

 thing remarkable, which might distinguish them, or be observed, only a smooth 

 surface ; but about the middle of the edges of each joint I observed a protube- 

 rating orifice, which would easily enough admit a hog's bristle, and was open, 

 and apparent to the naked eye. These orifices were placed for the most part 

 alternately, in one joint on the right side, in the following on the left. But 

 sometimes I have observed them in 2, more seldom in 3 succeeding joints of 

 the same side; but never in one joint more than once. These orifices I take at 

 present for so many mouths. But since I have here mentioned of what length 

 they have been observed in man, I shall also add how long those were I have 

 seen in dogs. For though they are to be met with only in the animal kingdom; 

 yet in abundance of the subjects of this, and those too of different species, they 

 are very frequent ; in fishes, as in the pike, whitings, bleakes, crabs, hferrings, 

 &c. and upon this score sometimes they prove a great damage to the merchants, 



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