572 WORMS BETWEEN THE TUNICS OF THE STOMACH. 
curvature of the stomach was a hard tumour, the size of a walnut. 
I cut it away with the portion of the stomach to which it belonged. 
It projected externally more than internally. It seemed to be 
raised upon the muscular coat under the peritoneum, and was 
of a steatomous character. I cut into it, and it contained a hollow 
in the centre filled with worms, apparently strongyli, pointed at 
both ends, and one extremity of a hard horny appearance. There 
were seven or eight of them, curled up in a kind of ball, occu¬ 
pying the central cyst, and they were alive. 
On examining the tumour more carefully I found perforations 
through its parietes, both into this central domicile and into the 
abdomen. Those into the abdomen were small and compara¬ 
tively indistinct; yet a worm was actually working its way 
through one of them, and two were floating loose in the abdo¬ 
minal cavity. The perforations from the tumour into the stomach 
were much larger; but there were not any worms in the stomach. 
I have often seen worms of a different character, longer and 
smaller—filarise—loose in the belly, and wondered how they 
came there; but I never before traced them to their nests. 
There was another tumour, of the same character, at a little dis¬ 
tance. On opening it there was found the same hollow; but the 
lining membrane of the cyst was ragged and and flaky—it was 
worm-eaten and destroyed. There were minute perforations here 
also, from the hollow of the tumour into the abdomen, and a 
much larger one—a kind of common way—into the stomach. 
This was an empty house—the worms had all escaped. 
It were folly to theorize, with one poor fact alone as the basis 
of that theory; but we seem to catch a faint glimpse of, at 
least, the occasional residence, and habits, and travels, and 
works, and effects, of some intestinal worms ; and, in the con¬ 
gregation of these worms in their cell, and the perforations of 
the parietes of that cell, we see more of insect architecture and 
insect life than we have been accustomed to dream of within the 
living being. Those who have opportunity will, perhaps, be 
more observant. 
There can scarcely be a doubt that the peritoneal inflamma¬ 
tion was produced by the presence and irritation of these worms. 
Y. 
