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XXI. 
ON EILAEIA SA^KGUmS HOMIMS. By BRIGADE-SUKGEON 
C. SIBTHOBPE, E.K.Q.C.P., Professor of Surgery, Madras 
Medical College. (Plate XIV.) 
[Eead January 28, 1889.] 
The life-history of this form of Eilaria is of great interest, especially 
to medical men in Africa, India, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, China, 
Australia, the Pacific, and South America, as certain forms of hseira- 
turia, cyluria, elephantiasis, lymphs-scrotum, with other forms of 
lymphatic obstruction, and the disease known in Africa as ''craw- 
craw" appear to be connected with its presence and development in 
the human body. 
In the year 1866 embryos of this worm were discovered by means 
of the microscope in the urine in cases of hsematuria : in 1872 the late 
Professor Lewis of Calcutta connected these with the embryos whicli 
he discovered in the human blood. In 1876 both he and Dr. Bancroft, 
of Brisbane, discovered the mature female worm. Lewis succeeded 
in finding a portion of the male worm, minus its caudal extremity, 
which he describes in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 
1879. 
The female worm has since been found by Dr. Manson, at Amoy, 
China, and Dr. Silva, at Aranjo and Los Santos. Since then Dr. Ban- 
croft suggested, and Dr. Mansou discovered, that the intermediary 
host of this worm was a peculiar form of mosquito (Culex), the 
female of which alone is provided with a proboscis, which permits of 
the entrance of the embryos. He also noted that the number sucked 
by the mosquito was greater than existed in an equal quantity of 
blood removed from the skin by a prick. The same fact has been found 
by the writer in Madras to be the case regarding bugs which had fed 
on the blood of patients which contained the embryos of Filaria. 
Dr. Mason in his work on Filaria sanguinis hominis^ published by 
H. K. Lewis in 1883, describes graphically his experiments regarding 
the development of the embryos in the mosquito, and how the new 
worm gets into drinking water on the death of its host. 
The worm having been swallowed from drinking water appears to 
