PART III.] Filaria Sanguinis Hominis in Relation to " Chyluriar 505 



starch-paste, I did not hesitate to draw attention to them as being the probable 

 cause of the obscure disease known as " Chyluria." * 



From this period I have paid considerable attention to the subject, and I desire 

 to express the obligations I am under to Dr. Ewart, the Surgeon in charge of the 

 Presidency Greneral Hospital; to Dr. D. B. Smith, the Officiating Principal of the 

 Medical College ; to Dr. Edmonston Charles, Professor of Midwifery at the same 

 College, and to Dr. McConnell, the Professor of Pathology, as well as to several 

 others, for the opportunities afforded me for the study of this and of allied conditions 

 of the urine. 



A slide containing one or more specimens of this Nematode having been forwarded 

 to Professor Parkes, at Netley, he very kindly showed it to Mr. Busk, whose extensive 

 knowledge in this department of science is well known, and the opinion was expressed 

 by him, that, so far as could be judged from the form and size alone, the worm 

 seemed to belong to the Filaridcb. 



At this time it was not known to exist in the blood, nor had its minute anatomy 

 been accurately ascertained ; however, I do not anticipate that the information 

 acquired since that time would materially alter Mr. Busk's opinion, so that perhaps 

 the name already applied to the Hsematozoon in the columns of the " Lancet," 

 Filaria Sanguinis hominis, may, provisionally, be adopted.t 



1 am indebted for the greater number of the specimens of Chylous urine which 

 I have examined to Dr. Charles, who with Dr. W. J. Palmer was, I believe, the first 

 to verify these observations, both having had cases of the disease about the same 

 time towards the end of 1870 or beginning of 1871. The fact of Dr. Charles being 

 in charge of the midwifery wards of the College Hospital, has apparently conduced to 

 his being able to aid me so materially, as, strange to say, the patients suffering from 

 Chyluria have, for the most part, been women : in the last case brought to my notice 

 by him, this condition was observed, for the first time, four days after podalic version 

 had been performed. 



I have now observed the urine in this condition, associated with more or less 



* Subsequent observations in connection with this case will be referred to further on (page 529). 



t A medical practitioner in Brazil, Dr. Otto Wucherer, in a paper on " Hfematuria Braziliensis," in the 

 Gazitta da Bahia of December 1868, states that he has discovered a parasite in the urine of a patient 

 suffering from this disease differing materially from the Trematode found by Bilharz in the hematuria of 

 Egypt ; and that Leuckart, to whom he forwarded specimens, had considered them to be the embryos of some 

 ground-worm probably belonging to the Strongylidae. Not having succeeded in obtaining the original 

 account, nor seen any figures of these parasites, 1 am not in a position to form anything like a definite opinion 

 as to the relation which may exist between them and the Filaria here referred to ; but judging from the 

 abridged descriptions and measurements which have lately come under my notice, they would appear to 

 present a marked resemblance, and I think that notwithstanding the absence of any allusion to the sheath 

 so characteristic, and during life especially, so coiupicuouH a feature in the latter, with some other discrep- 

 ancies, it will probably be found that they belong at least to a closely allied species, and possibly may 

 hereafter also be traced to the blood. 



