294 Account of a Filaria in a Horse's Eye. 



lymphatics, but especially in their reticular tissue, the glands, 

 which lead to local congestions of lymph, inflammations, and 

 morbid appearances of various kinds, become in this manner ve- 

 ry easy of comprehension ; and these assuredly deserve the at- 

 tention of medical science, not as speculations, but as realities. 

 Thousands of eggs of intestinal worms, whose existence in many 

 bodies can not be denied, must perish, as they are rarely develop- 

 ed in such great quantities from the difficuhy of their attaining 

 the place and conditions favorable for their development ; while 

 only some, very often none, ever actually attain those conditions. 

 This relative proportion of the number of intestinal worms and 

 of their eggs to the organs of the larger animals, is also found to 

 exist. There are very often observed in animal dissections a 

 small number of full-grown worms, filled with an itinumerable 

 quantity of eggs, without any young in their proximity ; and I 

 was often astonished to find in the considerable number of my 

 dissections of animal bodies, (I have brought from Africa alone 

 intestinal worms of 196 species of animals, all of which I have 

 myself dissected, and of some from 40 to 50 individuals,) only a 

 few alive, although these were completely filled with eggs. 

 Thus from laborious observations this opinion has become more 

 and more firmly fixed in my mind, that it is much more astonish- 

 ing how the great fecundity of the Entozoa should be so limited 

 by the living organs, than that it should be possible that living 

 worms should inhabit them, and, considering their diffusion, es- 

 cape observations which are generally superficial." 



Such are the views of this very able naturalist on this diffi- 

 cult subject, and I believe they are those which eventually will 

 be generally adopted. In this manner can we only satisfactorily 

 account for the existence of worms in the foetus of man and oth- 

 er animals, and in the intestines of chickens and the young of 

 other birds, which have just broken the shell; numerous instan- 

 ces of which have been recorded by Rudolphi, Blumenbach and 

 others. I see no great difiiculty in the supposition that these 

 ova are absorbed by the lacteals and lymphatics, and carried into 

 the circulation, as they are known to be smaller than the particles 

 of quicksilver, and the coloring matter of madder, &c., which it 

 is well known are constantly taken up and deposited in the bones 

 and other tissues of the body. We believe then that it is in the 

 highest degree probable, if not actually proved, that the minute 



