302 THE ANIMAL PARASITES OF MAN 



recent times it has repeatedly been observed in Europe in negroes as well 

 as in white men who have lived on the West Coast of Africa. 



Nothing is known regarding the development of Filaria loa. 

 Manson advances the hypothesis that its larva is Filaria diurna, 

 but this requires confirmation ; however, in the few cases in which 

 the blood of the host of Filaria loa has been examined blood 

 filarise have not been found ; in the case adduced by Manson the 

 patient certainly had filariae in the blood, but at the time of 

 observation had no Filaria loa. 



The presence of this worm sometimes causes no inconvenience, but, as 

 a rule, like any foreign body introduced into the conjunctival sac, induces 

 symptoms of inflammation which may become periodically aggravated. 



Nematodes of the most various sizes have been repeatedly observed in 

 the anterior chamber of the eye as well as in the substance of the lens 

 and vitreous humour. Thus Mercier (1771 and 1774) removed a filaria from the 

 anterior chamber of the eye of two negroes in St. Domingo, of which one 

 specimen measured 35 mm. in length. There is a further statement of 

 Barkan (1876), who extracted a filaria from the chamber of the eye of an 

 Australian in San Francisco. For a few weeks Coppez and Lacompte (1894) 

 had a little negro girl, 2| years of age, under observation, in whose eye 

 there was an immature nematode measuring 15-2 mm. in length, and 

 which was removed. It is difficult to say which species {Filaria loa or 

 Filaria medinensis} was in question in these cases. 



LITERATURE. 



PIGAFETTA. Vera descr. regni afric., quod tarn ab incolis quam a Lusitanis Congus 



appellatur. Francofurti, 1598. 

 BAJON. Mem. pour servir a 1'hist. de Cayenne et de la Guyane franc., 1768, i., p. 325. 



Abhdlg. v. d. Krankh. a. d. Insel Cayenne u. d. franz. Guyana. Erfurt, 1781. 

 MONGIN. Obs. sur un ver trouve dans la conjunct, a Mariborou. (Journ. de med., 



1770, xxxii., p. 338.) 



GUYOT in Arrachart. Mem., diss. et observ. de chirurgie, Paris, 1805, P- 22< &- 

 LUDWIG, H., and TH. SAEMISCH. Ueb. Fil. loa i. Auge d. Mensch. (Z. f. w. Z., 1895, 



lx., p. 726.) 

 BLANCHARD, R. Nouv. cas de Fil. loa (Arch, de paras., 1899, ii., p. 504). 



10. Filaria oculi humani, v. Nordmann, 1832 ; Filaria lentis, 



Diesing, 1851. 



The sexless nematodes observed in the lens of the human eye 

 are termed Filaria oculi humani. Only three cases are known, 

 v. Nordmann observed very small round worms in the lens of a 

 man and woman with cataract, and Gescheidt once found three 

 specimens in the lens of a woman similarly affected. 



The demonstration of nematode-like formations in the vitreous 

 remains uncertain even when movements are observed, and when 

 they cannot be extracted and examined microscopically, the doubt 



