366 Remarks on Dracunculus. 



seen to be in motion, the caudal extremity quivering and 

 flowing freely about, the body writhing, but still remaining 

 fixed by the head to the hardened mucous. They were 

 then rolled up in cloth and exposed to the steam of hot 

 water, with a view of setting the heads free, but this tempera- 

 ture being too great for them they were destroyed, thus 

 depriving us of the means of making further experiments as 

 to the length of time the young are capable of remaining 

 torpid, and the circumstances most favourable to their re- 

 suscitation. 



Fig. d. d. Plate x. represent the young magnified to 

 100 times their natural size. Their entire length would 

 consequently be no more than the breadth of the finest hair ; 

 so that every case of neglected Dracunculus would, accord- 

 ing to these observations, yield thousands of minute imper- 

 ceptible particles, in which a numerous progeny of the young 

 are ready again to be called into activity, on coming into 

 contact with the moist relaxed skin.* 



I had proceeded thus far in my observations, when Mr. 

 Brett pointed out to me a paper by Dr. A. Duncan, Bom- 

 bay Medical Service, in the 2nd part 7th volume Calcutta 

 Medical Transactions. Dr. Duncan had also found Dra- 

 cunculus in India to be a viviparous animal, filled with living 

 young. In an extensive practice he always found the large 

 ones full of young, and the small ones to be without them. 

 Whether this is owing to the latter being males, or to their 

 not having attained to maturity, is a question which yet re- 

 mains to be determined. But from their not being usually 



* The size of the young is still further diminished by their habit of 

 coiling themselves up. Dried in this state they would be no larger or 

 more formidable in appearance than the smallest mote we could discern 

 floating in a sunbeam admitted into a darkened room, and which we ad- 

 mit into our lungs by thousands, at every inspiration. It appears to 

 me to be great folly to dispute as to whether such minute particles 

 can enter the human body by the stomach or by the skin. 



