362 Remarks on Dracunculus. 



also as ascertained, namely, that the endemic causes may be 

 overcome in affected districts by improved comforts and me- 

 dical police, particularly as we learn from Sir J. McGregor, 

 that Bombay was about forty years ago a common seat of 

 the disease, since which time however, as appears from sub- 

 sequent writers, the troops stationed in, and near the Fort, 

 have been almost exempt from the disorder. 



Much of the discrepancy in the opinions of medical writers 

 on the subject of this disease, has arisen in my opinion from 

 regarding it as one and the same in whatever part of the 

 world it has been observed. The knowledge of the ancients 

 with regard to the Guinea-worm, was probably derived from 

 the only tropical parts of Egypt and Arabia in which the 

 disease was likely to occur, and with which they were ac- 

 quainted. They are not, however, very good authorities on 

 the subject of worms ; and as the species with which they 

 were acquainted must have been derived from the west- 

 ward of the Euphrates, it is possible that the identity of the 

 Indian as well as the West Indian species, which occasion 

 the disease we call Dracunculus, are different from the Dra- 

 cunculus of the Romans and the Greeks. It is probable even 

 from what is known of the distribution of animals, that the 

 Dracunculus of the West Indies is different from the Dra- 

 cunculus of the East, and that even in the East we may 

 have several species, subject to different laws of propagation 

 and development ; a circumstance that seems to have escaped 

 all those who have written on the subject. Nothing can be 

 more vague, more unscientific, or unsatisfactory, than the 

 various descriptions we have seen of the Guinea-worm by 

 medical writers. 



Some speak of it as an animalcule, some as an insect, some 

 as a gordius, or earth-worm, some as a reptile, and some deny 

 its being any thing more than a detached absorbent vessel, 

 or a nerve. With regard to the manner in which it enters 

 the cellular tissue, little is to be expected from those who 



