LirE-HISTOEY OF FILAEIA BANCEOFTI. S61 



found by Lewis, Salisbury, Crevaux and Corre, da Silva Lima, 

 Eoncerviiies, and myself. If, therefore, the original discoverer's 

 name must stand in connexion with the genus Filaria, the worm 

 in question ought, in all fairness, to be permanently recognized 

 as Filaria wuchereri. I hold, however, that in the present case 

 the parasite of Wucherer, of Salisbury (who placed it in the 

 genus Trichina), and of others (who either, like myself, did not 

 choose to give it a special name, or who, like Salisbury, adopted 

 an erroneous nomenclature) should carry with it the name of 

 the person who was the first to discover and to describe the 

 sexually mature representative of the hsematozoa. Such a re- 

 cognition can in no way detract from the supreme merits of 

 Lewis. In the next place it does no injury to "Wucherer's 

 priority in the matter of the original discovery of the larva. In 

 the third place no injustice is done to Manson, whose remarkable 

 discovery of the intermediate host places the fame of his research 

 on an equally secure basis. In short, the helminthologist of the 

 future, when dealing witli the question of the discovery of this 

 entozoon, will find himself obliged to bracket the names of four 

 distinguished observers together. Would he seek to be disin- 

 terestedly just, he must also award more or less conspicuous merit 

 to the several other workers whose names will naturally be read 

 between the lines that record the discoveries of Wucherer, Lewis, 

 Bancroft, and Manson. 



In this connexion the ^ finds ' of Drs. Sonsino, O'Neill, Araujo, 

 and Eelicio dos Santos cannot be passed over. It was on the 1st 

 of February, 1874, that Sonsino detected microscopic Filarice in 

 the blood of a young Egyptian Jew (Eef. No. 10). He records 

 the fact in the following words : — " I put a drop of blood (from 

 the finger of the boy) under the microscope, placing it directly 

 under the objective glass, when with astonishment I discovered a 

 living organism in the midst of the haematic globules. The 

 nematoid had the shape of an Anguillula, as fig. 6 (in Dr. 

 Sonsino's memoir) represents. It glided amongst the blood- 

 globules, which were tossed to and fro by its lively movements." 

 Dr. Sonsino verified his observation on the 6th of the same month; 

 nevertheless, neither himself nor his colleagues (Drs. Ambron, 

 Dacorogna, Dutrieux), nor Dr. Abbate Bey, to all of whom the 

 facts were demonstrated, could at first persuade themselves that 

 the worms had really come from the blood. It was not until 

 Sonsino had become acquainted with the facts that I had recorded 



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