Chap. XI.] PAEASITIC WOBMS. 
397 
cellular tissue under the skin, is well known in the north 
of the island, but rarely found in the damper districts of 
the south and west. In Ceylon, as elsewhere, the natives 
attribute its occurrence to drinking the waters of par- 
ticular wells; but this belief is inconsistent with the 
fact that its lodgment in the human body is almost 
always effected just above the ankle. This shows that 
the minute parasites are transferred to the skin of the 
leg from the moist vegetation bordering the footpaths 
leading to wells. At this period the creatures are very 
small, and the process of insinuation is painless and 
imperceptible. It is only when they attain to consider- 
able size, a foot or more in length, that the operation of 
extracting them is resorted to, when exercise may have 
given rise to inconvenience and inflammation. 
These pests in all probability received their popular 
name of Guinea-worms, from the narrative of Bruno 
or Braun, a citizen and surgeon of Basle, who about the 
year 1611 made several voyages to that part of the 
African coast, and on his return published, amongst 
other things, an account of the local diseases. 1 But 
Linschoten, the Dutch navigator, had previously ob- 
served the same worms at Ormus in 1584, and they are 
thus described, together with the method of removing 
them, in the English version of his voyage. 
te There is in Ormus a sickenesse or common plague 
of wormes, which growe in their legges, it is thought 
that they proceede of the water that they drink. These 
wormes are like unto lute strings, and about two or 
three fadomes longe, which they must plucke out and 
winde them aboute a straw or a feather, everie day some 
1 In De Bey's Collect, vol. i. p. 49. 
