FILARIA MEDIN ENS1S. 
237 
it certainly did in a rivulet passing through it; that, as they 
had no other water, they drank of that, and, not giving 
credit to the assertion of the African slave that the guinea- 
worm could enter the body by the water they drank, they 
almost all became affected, as out of nine only three escaped 
it; that these were Joao Curimata, Manoel da Branca, and 
Manoel, a black slave, born in Brazil. He finally stated 
that, inconsequence of what the black had said, he examined 
the water, but saw nothing, as it was muddy ; that he is 
now perfectly convinced the animal gained entrance to the 
body through the drinking water. 
4. Manoel, a Brazilian-born slave, confirms the state¬ 
ments of the above witnesses as to the locality, and the use 
they made of the Pojuca waters, adding that, as far as he 
remembers, three persons belonging to the convoy of Suciano 
Seite da Silva were affected with the same disease, being 
Suciano himself and two others—all these since dead—and 
that these all attributed the disease to the Pojuca waters, in 
which they were convinced there existed the guinea-worm. 
5. Joao Curimata confirmed the evidence of his four com¬ 
panions, that it was popularly believed that the guinea-worm 
existed in the S. Jose and Pojuca marshes, that he did not 
wash in the water, but drank of it, taking, however, the pre¬ 
caul ion of straining it, and to this he attributes his having 
escaped catching the disease. 
I have further to add that the evidence of Manoel Fran¬ 
cisco d’Oliveira, one of the sufferers, and with whom, on two 
occasions in Portugal, I conversed on the subject, is in per¬ 
fect harmony with the account given by his fellow-companions 
and sufferers. 
Part IV. 
More, this occurrence of twenty-eight years ago, the 
authenticity of which cannot be called in question, not of 
itself sufficient to justify the tradition that, at that time, 
those localities were infested by the guinea-worm, and that 
this found an entrance into the system by means of drinking 
water, other more recent observations would amply confirm 
both assertions as no longer admitting of any doubt. 
In the recent very valuable and learned inaugural thesis 
of my young colleague and friend, Dr. M. Victorino Pereira, 
“ On the more frequent Parasitic Diseases of Tropical 
Climates,” occurs a letter from an old fellow-pupil of mine, 
Dr. O. C. Cabossu, now in practice in the Feira de Santa 
Anna, which, in the main, is entirely at one with the results 
arrived at, alike in the inquiries made at Joazeiro, and with 
