PART iii.j Persistence of the Hcsmatozoon in Human Urine. 529 



been stuffed throughout its entire length with ova and embryos ; the latter 

 measured ^oth to ^V^h of an inch in length and aToo^h in breadth, but the 

 author does not consider that they could circulate with the blood through the 

 capillary vessels/'' 



Such in a few words is the present state of our knowledge of the principal 

 Hasmatozoa affecting lower animals ; and from these records alone would our 

 nferences have had to be made in regard to the particular question as to the 

 possible duration of the human Hsematozoon were it not for a rather strange 

 coincidence. 



The foregoing account had just been transcribed from my notes, when I had 

 occasion to visit the Government Printing Establishment, where, to my utter surprise, 

 I saw, busily putting into type a portion of the foregoing pages, the very man in 

 whose urine these P^'ilariae were first detected, more than two and a half years ago. 

 Being rather below the average in intelligence, he had not the remotest idea to what 

 the manuscript referred. 



At my request he called upon me in the afternoon, and I learnt from him 

 then, that his urine had been perfectly healthy ever since he left the hospital, about 

 April 1870 ; it certainly looked healthy when he called, and was quite free from 

 albumen. t I prepared seven slides from blood obtained by pricking the middle 

 finger of one hand, and three slides from the same finger of the other hand. On 

 seeing me do this, the man inquired why I had made so many preparations, as 

 on a former occasion I had only taken one slide — a circumstance, by the way, 

 which I had quite forgotten ; certainly I had not discovered Ha?matozoa. This 

 little incident also conveys its lesson ; had I taken a dozen slides on the first 

 occasion instead of one, the date of the detection of the Filaria in the blood would 

 probably have been simultaneous with their detection in the urine. In the first four 

 or five preparations examined nothing could be observed ; in the two next taken up, 

 one belonging to each hand, Hsematozoa were detected, very active, but in no way 

 differing from the excellent live specimens which I had obtained in his urine long 

 ago, and in no way differing from the Filarise since detected in the urine and blood, 

 of so many persons. The measurements of two specimens were taken on the following 

 morning after their activity had subsided ; one was Ve^th of an inch in length by 

 jsVcjth in breadth, and the other ^^^th by ^-sV^jth 



After this I lost sight of the patient for about six months, but in March 1873 

 he called upon me, when I re-examined his blood and again obtained numerous 

 Filarise in it — exactly three years since they were first recognised in his urine. He 

 called once more, on the 12th April, complaining of diarrhoea and pain in the epi- 



* Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist, 1858, p. 400. 

 V f On referring to my notes of this case, I find that, at the time when he left the hospital, the 

 albumen had disappeared from his urine and that Filarite could no longer be detected in it — the disappear- 

 ance of the Filariae preceding the cessation of Chyluria. 



36 



