FILARIA TN THE EYE. 
661 
operation because the cornea is here least dense, and because 
the aqueous humour, which gradually re-forms, will be least 
likely again to escape while the wound is healing. 
“ These worms find their way into the animal's body along 
with the water he drinks, either as fully developed parasites 
or as ova. Both the parasites and eggs are found in the 
stagnant waters of India." 
The Veterinarian for 1864, p. 218, contains the account of 
a case where this species of worm was removed by the 
operation just described, one from either eye. Beer's cataract 
knife was used to make the incision. The Edinburgh Vete¬ 
rinary Revieio , vol. vi, for 1864, also contains a very interest¬ 
ing and humorous account of a similar case. 
Since commencing this paper I have learned, through a 
friend, that Dr. Chas. J. Kipp, of New'ark, N. J., exhibited, 
at a recent meeting of the New York Ophthalmological 
Society, a fine specimen of filaria w'hich he had removed from 
the anterior chamber of the eye of a horse. The doctor will 
doubtless publish a detailed account of the case. 
m 
Filaria in the Eye of Man . 
Although it seems a shocking thing to contemplate, it is, 
nevertheless, true, that filaria, and living ones, too, have been 
found in the human eye. 
Dr. Nordmann,* of Odessa, describes the circumstances 
w r hich led him to discover the existence of entozoa in the eyes 
of several vertebrates; and he gives a minute account of 
them, illustrated by beautiful figures, representing their form 
and internal structure. His researches, during the years 1830 
and 1831, embraced numerous eyes of horned cattle, sheep, 
pigs, frogs, lizards and fishes, wuth some from the human 
subject, and birds. He found entozoa of the genus filaria in 
the human eve, in that of the haddock (Gadus aeglefinus ), of 
the genus ascaris in the frog, of the genus oxyuris in the 
perch, of the genus cysticercus in the pig, and trematoda in great 
abundance in fishes generally. In fishes he first found entozoa 
in the vitreous humour, but he subsequently met w-ith them in 
the crystalline lens and the capsule, between the laminae of 
the cornea, in the iris and retina, and in the aqueous humour 
( Lib.cit ., pp. 1-6). In the crystalline lens of some fishes they 
are so numerous as to render it more or less opaque, and thus 
to impair or injure sight (Lib. cit pp. 19, 20). 
A species of filaria (. Filaria medinensis ?) has been seen under 
the conjunctiva oculi in the West Indies. Schon has quoted 
* Nordmann, * Mikrographische Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Wir- 
bellosen Thiere,’ Erstes Heft, pp. 11-13. 
