A REEXAMINATION OF THE TYPE SPECIMEN OF 
FILARIA RESTIFORMIS LEIDY, 1880,= 
AGAMOMERMIS RESTIFORMIS. 
By Ch. Wardell Stiles, Pli. D. 
■ Chief of Division of Zoology, Hygienic Laboratory, U. S. Public Health and 
Marine-Hospital Service. 
(Figs. 19 to 26.) 
While examining some specimens in the Army Medical Museum 
with the late Dr. James Carroll, I found Leidy’s original specimen of 
Filaria restiformis^ reported as a parasite of man. As the parasite 
has been reported but once, and as little is known regarding its nature, 
I requested Major Carroll to place the specimen at my disposal for 
study. This he kindly did. 
Historical Keview. — Leidy (1880c; 1904a, 157-159) received from 
Dr. J. J. Woodward, U. S. Army, a specimen of a worm which had 
been sent to the Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C., by Dr. 
C. L. Garnett, of Buffalo, Putnam County, W. Va., together with the 
following extract from a letter : 
During the winter of 1876 a man, a common laborer, aged about 50, presented 
himself to me for treatment, having a gleety discharge from the urethra, with 
a burning sensation during and after micturition. Previously he had been 
treated for gonorrhoea, and I prescribed accordingly. The patient, not improv- 
ing, applied to other practitioners. In April, 1878, he came to me with a round, 
vivid-red worm, 26 inches in length (the specimen you now possess), and very 
active in its movements, instantly coiling up like a watch-spring on being 
touched. Having no work on helminthology for reference, the only description 
I found which appeared to answer to the worm was that of Strongylus gigas, 
in Niemeyer, Vol. II, p. 47. The patient is an illiterate man, with no motive 
for deception. He informed me that he discovered the worm protruding from 
his penis and drew it out without pain or difficulty. He was in much agitation 
and alarm about the occurrence, fearing, as he said, that “ there might be more 
behind that one.” For a few days previous to its passage his urine was of a 
milky hue and some time subsequently of a yellow cast and slightly tinged with 
blood and mingled with mucus. The man is truthful, and no doubt exists in 
my mind or in the minds of his neighbors as to the correctness of his state- 
ments. I regret exceedingly that I did not appreciate the scientific interest of 
