NATURE OF THE DRACUNCULUS, OR GUINEAWORM. 129 
it is acute and suddenly inflected.” This is the only observation he makes concerning it ; 
and as not a word is said about its internal anatomy, we may presume that it was assigned 
to the male sex from its external characters alone. But a comparison of the figure 
Professor Owen has given with Pl. XXI. fig. 7, will, I think, warrant us in believing, 
till some more definite statement is made, that his so-called male worm was similar to 
the one figured by myself, whose rather unusual form appeared due to the circum- 
stance of its being more than ordinarily distended with young up to within a short 
distance from the extremity of the tail. 
M. Leblond* having examined one of the portions of the only specimen of Guinea- 
worm contained in the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris, and found it to be part of a 
female worm, containing young, then squeezed another portion and expressed some white 
matter, which, when broken up by the aid of needles, and submitted to a high power of 
the microscope, he says, “ma paru constituée de corpuscules irréguliers diversiformes. 
Peut-être ces corpuscules étaient-ils spermatiques. Dans cette hypothèse le fragment 
indiqué éut fait partie d'un autre individu.” But can we admit this hypothesis? To 
say the least, it is very improbable; and then M. Leblond could not have been certain 
even that the matter examined came from the genital tube rather than the intestinal 
eanal or general cavity of the body. 
Dr. M‘Clelland+ gives a plate of two or three different forms of the caudal extremity, 
one of which, pl. 10. fig. 1, he suspects only may be characteristic of a male worm, 
though Küchenmeisteri alludes to it, on the authority of Diesing, as the actual repre- 
sentation of such a worm$. 
I think, then, we are fairly entitled to consider that no satisfactory evidence has yet 
been brought forward of the detection of a male parasitic Guineaworm ; and such being 
the case, the reason why females only are met with is a very interesting question. 
This may be explained, it appears to me, in one oftwo ways: either both male and female 
representatives of the species, of which the Guineaworm is an after-development, make 
their way through the integuments of persons exposing themselves to the conditions 
favourable for their penetration, but that the males in their new situation never attain 
any great size, and consequently, producing no inconvenience, do not attract attention, 
whilst the females, by the enormous development of their genital organs and contents, 
under the stimulus of high temperature and abundance of nutriment, soon attain such a 
Size as to be palpable in superficial situations. It seems very probable that the male, 
if it penetrated, would never attain any considerable magnitude; and that it might 
remain in its new habitat without producing irritation is rendered very likely, seeing 
* * Quelques Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire des Filaires et des Strongyles," Précis Analyt. des Travaux de 
l'Acad. Roy. de Rouen, 1835, p. 150. : 
T Caleutta Journal of Nat. History, vol. i. p. 359. ,} Loc. cit. P: E E y 
$ The only other reference to a male worm that I have met with seems too improbable to — u : x 
It occurs in a paper by Dr. Greenhow, before alluded to, in which he says:—“ I have not been LI 1 Me 
to meet with a male worm; but the before-named native doctor tells me that he has seen several. He es : 
them as twice as long and four times as thick as the female, that is, about four feet long and nearly half an ine 
tn diameter," 
