‘Guinea-worm Embryos into the Human Body. 443 
the free species has been found entering, or in, one of the sudo- 
rific ducts; so this is still an assumption ; but having met with an 
instance in which young Filaride were found entering a fungus 
by analogous apertures on the surface, even smaller than those 
of the sudorific ducts, it seems desirable that the facts should be 
recorded to show that, at least in the vegetable kingdom, this 
kind of entrance takes place. 
I have formerly stated that the free microscopic Filaride 
chiefly frequent the gelatinous Algze for breeding, and alao for 
food; and now I can add that myriads also accompany almost 
every species of large fungus for the same purpose. The num- 
ber of microscopic worms, together with the larvee of insects, to 
which the fungi give nourishment is incredible; and it was on 
the surface of a large species of Spheria that I observed the fact 
to which I have aboye alluded, and of which the following is a 
description :— 
While examining some specimens of the large digitiform Xy- 
laria which grows on the decaying trunks of Tamarind-trees, 
&c., some delicate, glistering, thread-like bodies were seen to 
project from the summits of the conceptacles (one from each), 
and to be waving with such an animal motion that I thought it 
desirable to ascertain their real nature; so, having collected two 
or three on the point of a needle for this purpose, they were 
transferred to a little water on a glass slide, and placed under 
a microscope, when they were found to be young Filaride, but 
too undeveloped for their species to be determined, 
The conceptacles are little globe-shaped sacs, imbedded in 
and scattered over the surface of the fungus, upon which they 
open by minute mouths or ostioles, respectively, which, when 
measured, were found not to exceed the 1-1880th part of an 
inch in diameter (so that they are smaller than the orifices of 
the sudorific ducts of the human body) ; and from each of these 
ostioles was projecting a single Filaria—the head in the con- 
ceptacle. 
If, then, it be possible for these little embryo-worms to enter 
such small apertures for food in one organic being, it may fairly 
be inferred that others may do so in another; and hence the 
possibility, if not probability, of the Guinea-worm in the human 
subject bemg a monstrous development of a particular species 
of one of the free Filaride, which also enters the human body 
in an embryonal form for food, through the sudorifie ducts— 
assuming, as before stated, that, indeed, which is almost a cer- 
tainty, viz. that the young of Dracunculus are too delicate to 
maintain an independent existence, and therefore cannot propa- 
gate the species, which must thus obtain its perpetuity and 
come from some other source, 
