Filaria loa ri 



tion given. Under this treatment the total number listed becomes 

 ninety-four, from the record of Mongin published in 1770 to 

 those of the current year (1905), a time interval of 135 years. 

 About two-thirds fall within the last twenty years, and half the 

 total number have been published within the ten years from 1896 

 to date. 



The matter of the earliest record calls for a word of comment. 

 Pigafetta (1525) has been cited by Guyon (1864), Manson, 

 Moniez (1896), and Blanchard (1886, 1899) as evidence of the 

 occurrence of Filaria loa in Africa in the sixteenth century. 

 This claim is based upon a plate, one figure of which is inter- 

 preted by these authors as illustrating the removal of an eye 

 worm. It appears that this plate does not belong to Pigafetta's 

 works, but to Lindschoten's ; and even here it is not found in the 

 original edition (1596), but occurs first in the De Bry reprint 

 where it was probably inserted by the publisher. I have dis- 

 cussed the matter in detail elsewhere (Ward, 1905). The region 

 described by Lindschoten lies in the Persian Gulf, and not in 

 the Congo territory, where Guyon et alii located the account. 

 It is thus well within the range of Dracuncnlus mcdincnsis, but 

 far removed from the habitat of Filaria loa. Furthermore the 

 text makes no mention of infected eyes, but speaks of "worms 

 in the legs" of the natives, which again accords with the Guinea 

 worm. Hence the interpretation placed upon the plate must be 

 rejected, and if, indeed, the plate itself has any standing as evi- 

 dence, it concerns the Guinea worm rather than Filaria loa. 

 This reference must accordingly be eliminated from discussions 

 of the latter species. It is not listed here among the cases o£ 

 F. loa which I have collected, verified, and arranged as follows: 



1. Mongin at St. Domingo in 1770 records the extraction of 

 one worm from between the conjunctiva and albuginea of n 

 negress. 



2. Bajon at Cayenne in 1768 removed a worm from below the 

 conjunctiva of a negress eight years old; this case was first pub- 

 lished in 1777 together with the following. 



281 



