368 Remarks on Dracunculus. 



however, we must find fault with the usual inference de- 

 rived from this resemblance, until we are either furnished 

 with specimens of the worms in question, or a satisfactory 

 description of them. Under these circumstances we would 

 confer a benefit on science in general, and our own pro- 

 fession in particular, by carefully collecting the most perfect 

 specimens of the worms we extract in practice, together 

 with all worms found in wells, tanks, and mud in affected 

 districts, particularly such as the natives believe to be identi- 

 cal with Dracunculus, and placing them in the hands of 

 some one conversant with the subject, and who would un- 

 dertake its elucidation. A few small phials might be suffi- 

 cient to hold a collection, if carefully chosen, that might 

 reconcile the most opposite opinions on the subject of 

 Dracunculus, now so nicely balanced that it were idle to 

 cast our own into either scale. It appears to us probable, 

 however, that we have many kinds of Dracunculus, even in 

 India ; should this prove to be the case, some may be endemic 

 during the hot season, in dry arid tracts, some during 

 the rains in low moist situations, and some peculiar to the 

 cold, or winter months. We have hardly a reason for con- 

 cluding, as appears to have been taken for granted by Dr. 

 Chisholm and all subsequent writers, that the disease of 

 Grenada, which appears there during the winter, is the 

 same as that which appears in the East Indies during 

 the rains, however the general form of the animals that 

 occasion the disease in both cases may correspond. The 

 wide geographical range between the East and West Indies, 

 is of itself a sufficient reason to cast a doubt on the identity 

 of the two animals, independent of the difference of the 

 seasons at which they are developed, and the opinions 

 regarding the manner in which they are introduced to the 

 cellular tissue of the human body. Another supposition 

 which Dr. Chisholm and other writers on this subject seem 

 to have adopted, still more inexcusably, because it is in 



