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52 
THE NEWLY DISCOVERED ~RM MATOZOON INHABITING 
HUMAN BLOOD. 
The Lancet says that — (i We announced in a few lines in the 
course of the summer the discovery by Mr. Timothy Richard 
Lewis, M.B., Assistant-Surgeon to H.M. British Forces, on 
special duty, attached to the Sanitary Commissioner with the 
Government of India, of a new worm found in the blood and 
in the urine of certain patients who had come under Mr. 
Lewis’s notice in India. Wa have been favoured with an 
article describing this parasite and the cases in w hich it was 
found. The article is contained in the Report of the Sanitary 
Commissioner with the Government of India, just published, 
and will be read with much curious interest by all helmin¬ 
thologists. Certain limited portions of large vessels, as those 
of the portal system, have often been invaded by Bistomata. 
But the condition described by Mr. Lewis is one in w 7 hich 
the whole blood is infested with living active worms about 
of an inch in length, and with a transverse diameter of 
of an inch— f a condition/ says the discoverer, 6 in 
wHich they are persistently so ubiquitous as to be obtained 
day after day by simply pricking any portion of the body, 
even to the tips of the fingers and toes of both hands and 
both feet of one and the same person with a finely pointed 
needle. On one occasion six excellent specimens were 
obtained in a single drop of blood by merely pricking the 
lobule of the ear.” ’ 
Filaria sanguinis hominis is the name first given to this 
haematozoon in The Lancet, and Mr. Lewis proposes to retain 
it. Its appearance on first being removed from the body is 
very characteristic. It moves about incessantly, coiling and 
uncoiling itself unceasingly, lashing the blood-corpuscles 
about in all directions, and insinuating itself between them. 
A young Bengalee compared it not inaptly to an incompletely 
developed snake. At first the worms look translucent, the 
larger specimens, however, frequently presenting an aggre¬ 
gation of granules towards the junction of the middle and 
low r er half. Occasionally a bright spot is seen at the thicker 
extremity, suggestive of a mouth. They continue active 
from six to thirty hours. In the later period of their existence 
the movements of filariae become much slower, and the 
plasma of their bodies more granular, until all signs of activity 
disappear. The haematozoon is enveloped in an extremely 
delicate tube, closed at both ends, within which it is capable 
