644 DR. CHISHOLM ON THE MALIS DRACUNCULUS. 
much pain, the worm was extracted in the usual way. In this 
instance it seems evident that the insect in its embryo state must 
have made its way into the foot through the skin. It is there- 
fore a fact of great importance in the discussion of the question 
relative to the mode of admission of the Guinea-worm into the 
human body, establishing the proof that this may be effected by 
the skin. Mr. lnglis also informed me, that a medical gentle- 
man of that presidency had assured him that, in the soil com- 
posing the surface of some parts of Bombay island, dracunculi 
have been often taken alive. These facts have been farther con- 
firmed by Dr. H. Scott, from Bombay, in a communication he 
obligingly favoured me with on the subject. He says, “the 
dracunculis, or Guinea-worm, is common at Bombay, and all 
over that part of the coast of India. It becomes endemic in the 
rainy reason, and hardly appears during the dry weather, espe- 
cially towards the conclusion. There are no appearances of a 
volcanic kind in Bombay, where it is chiefly prevalent, nor in 
Sulsette, although in that island there are proofs that in parti- 
cular parts the mineral kingdom had been subjected to great heat. 
Our strata are all of the secondary kind. These worms are 
sometimes found in India, in the moist earth, in great numbers 
together ; but we have not yet seen them in any prior form or 
state of existence to that of a worm. During our rainy season 
the legs of people who walk among grass, and particularly those 
of gardeners, are full of them. The Indians wear no covering 
on their legs. Those who are obliged to wet themselves fre- 
quently are at all seasons liable to them. Men who carry water 
on their backs, in leathern bags, have that part of their back 
which is so often wetted very full of these worms/’ 
On comparing these facts with those which I myself have 
witnessed at Grenada, there seems to be sufficient reason to be- 
lieve, first, that the dracunculus propagate by ova, or that it is 
oviparous, not viviparous; second, that the insect affects an 
argillaceous soil, or one composed of the ferruminated ashes 
and decayed lava of volcanoes, and more especially when such 
soil has a considerable impregnation of salt, or when it is per- 
colated by sea water ; third, that the insect may deposit its ova 
in this soil, or in the interstices of the skin of the human body, 
when these are conveniently disposed for their reception ; fourth, 
that water percolating through such soil may have the ova floating 
in it ; fifth, that when this water becomes the drink of any part 
of the human race, the ova are necessarily thereby received into 
the human stomach; sixth, that therefore it seems a just infe- 
rence, that the hatching of these ova may take place in the soil 
and in the human body; and, seventh, that in the first instance 
