322 
F1LARIA MEDINENSIS. 
means and the inclination for investigating, if there exist in 
Brazil any other centres of Dracunculus infection, and how 
far any connection can be traced between these and the 
African slave trade. 
And if such researches should appear at first sight to be 
more historically interesting than practically valuable, they 
may, nevertheless, come to be of great hygienic importance 
alike to the public and to individuals, besides adding 
something to our as yet small enough national scientific 
inheritance. 
VI. 
From what precedes I think we are warranted in drawing 
the following conclusions : — 
1. That there is, in the province of Bahia, a locality where 
the Filaria Medinensis or Guinea-worm is endemic. 
2. That this locality is in the neighbourhood of the Feira 
de Santa Anna, in the parish of S. Jose, and is a marsh 
bearing that name, as well as another bearing that of Pojuca, 
on the road passing through Jacuipe, towards Joazeiro. 
3. That it is during the first rains, after a dry season, that 
the Guinea-worm is most frequently met with, and that, 
therefore, the use of the waters of these localities is the most 
dangerous. 
4. That although the Dracunculus has doubtless other 
means of easy ingress into the human body, yet, beyond all 
doubt, it does also gain such ingress by the stomach, and in 
drinking water ; and that, therefore, 
5. The best means of avoiding infection is not to make 
use of any suspected water, unless after filtering or boiling 
it; or, better still, after both. 
6. That the most probable, as well as the most generally 
accepted opinion, in regard to the origin of the Dracunculus 
in Brazil, is that which looks upon it as having been im¬ 
ported by blacks from Africa, it being undeniable that these 
often showed symptoms of its existence in their body either 
on their arrival or soon after; but neither this fact nor any 
document yet known can be looked upon as excluding the 
possibility of its existence in Brazil at a period anterior to 
the slave trade. 
7. That the presence of the worm in the autoparasitic 
phasis of its existence in the neighbourhood of the Feira de 
Santa Anna, at a great distance from the coast, and its 
absence from those localities w’here newly imported slaves 
were most numerous, is of difficult explanation, on the theory 
of its being an African importation. 
